[Request] Having to give a small presentation/speech

[Zaphry]

I have to give a small presentation/speech in my English class and the subject can be anything. I decided that I will give a small presentation about drawing a portrait.

Here's what I have been thinking of doing.

Why I chose this subject.
Drawing is basically what I do when I have some free time. Drawing a portrait takes some skill and time.
Most people quit after the first few lines, but you shouldn’t give up so easily. I believe that anyone can draw as long as they put their mind into it and don’t give up on it even though it may take from few days to weeks to finish the drawing.

What is needed?
Dedication, and lots of it.
Some quality paper is needed to make a decent portrait. I prefer the smooth surface paper as shadings blend on it better and it doesn’t get smudges so easily. Although it can be done with lesser quality paper aswell, but results are according to that.
You will also need a small variety of pencils (2B – 9B) so you can create some depth into your drawing.
Next you will need an eraser. It must be one of those hard erasers which don’t leave smudges on the paper after erasing. I personally use a blade to cut eraser into small pieces, more about that later.
Next you will needing a tissue paper or a small piece of smooth cloth. You will be using it to blend the shading.
You also may want to use rubber gloves so that the oil from your skin doesn’t get on the paper.
And at last the most important thing, the actual photo which you will be drawing from. I can’t say this hard enough. The better quality photo, the better detailed the portrait will be.
Sketching
First off, you need to study the face so you will get used to the features. At start of this little project you will be drawing the lines of the face. This is perhaps the most challenging part. I have failed many times on this, but after some serious time you’ll get it correct. You should use 2B pencil for this as anything harder than that will leave permanent markings on the paper.

Eyes

Usually I draw eyes next as they are second hardest part of the drawing. If they go wrong you can pretty much just scramble whole thing and start over again. First you need to fill in the iris leaving the empty spots for the reflection. Remember to fill in enough lines so you can get the shading right. Then you can start filling the center of the eye with 6B. You can use q-tip to blend the shading abit. Next you’ll be adding some shading to the eyeball to make it look round.

Lips
Drawing lips can also be hard. Without some depth lips look too flat. First you should strengthen the middle line of the mouth which you drew earlier. Next you need to shade the upper and lower lip. Try to make them to look round. Some shading will be added to upper lip, but not as much as to the lower lip. This is because of the angle of the light will cause the upper lip to be in shadow. Natural gloss and wetness of the lips will often catch the light on the lower lip and create a nice highlight.

Fill in
When starting to work on the face, the first thing you should do is to identify where the lightest area will be. You will scribble around them and blend them very lightly with tissue paper. After that you can go into darker areas and blend them like earlier. Skin texture can be achieved by either using the circulism technique or by dapping a kneaded rubber eraser on surrounding shaded areas.

Personally I just scribble shadings and blend them with tissue paper.

Hair

Next you will start to work on hair. Always work from top to bottom. First you need to shade the darkest areas of hair and blend them in. You also need to use sharpened eraser on the areas to make sharper edges.
Next you should apply a light shade to whole area where hair is supposed to be and blend it in. Pick up your newly sharpened erased and start to stroke fine hairlike lines on the blended surface. These will represent the top layer of hair. You will strengthen the lines with really sharp pencil or mechanical pencil. Now you can start to draw the lower layer of hairs and repeat the sharp eraser effect on them aswell. Repeat the process with eraser until you are satisfied with the results.
This will create semi realistic looking hair.

Finishing touch

Now that the face and hair are almost done, you can focus on the small details, such as eyelashes, jewelry, gloss and depth to the eyes, eyebrows, lips and so forth. You should use sharpened eraser to bring sharp great detail.

So if there is something what you would like for me to change in it, say it.

There will be pictures of process on my latest drawing on the powerpoint version.