My Pencil Portrait Drawing Process — Step by Step Tutorial

Hello friends and members of this community, happy new month to you all, and it's good to be here once again, and I hope you all are doing well and good. Today I’m happy to share with you all one of my most recent pencil drawings. This artwork was done using simple graphite pencils, and in this post I’ll explain how I created it step by step. I enjoy making realistic pencil portraits, and this particular drawing was an interesting one for me because of the strong expression and body posture. Here's how I made it.

Drawing materials

• A4 paper

• graphite pencil

• 2B pencil

• 4B and 6B pencil

• black pen

• eraser

• sharpener.

Step 1

I began this drawing by simply starting with the face; I carefully placed the eyes, nose, and mouth, making sure the proportions were accurate. The expression was important, so I spent more time adjusting the eyes and eyebrows until it looked right.

Step 2

Next, I carefully worked on shading the face. I shaded the face carefully, following the direction of light to create depth. Areas like the beard, neck, and under the chin were shaded darker to add contrast.

Step 3

After doing that, I then outlined the shoulders and chest using soft pencil strokes. I imagined the muscle structure beneath the shirt and allowed the fabric to follow the body naturally.

Step 4

After doing that, I then added the arms and then I shaded it and the lower part of the body as well to complete the drawing.

Step 5

Then finally, I refined the drawing by darkening important lines, cleaning rough edges, and improving contrast. I checked the overall balance of light and shadow and made small corrections where needed. Then my drawing was now complete.

My selfie with my drawing

This drawing was an enjoyable experience for me, and it helped me improve my shading and proportion skills. I’m glad to share my process with this community, and I hope you find it useful. Thank you for stopping by and supporting my work; have a nice day.

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