Whitney aka Naptural85 in graphite pencil

You're looking at a drawing of one of my favorite youtubers. She has been an inspiration and a major help over the years thus the drawing. 

I started by drawing a light sketch and then proceeded with shading, starting with an HB pencil and working my way up to an 8B. I used a large and small blending stump as well as tissue paper to help me spread the graphite.

With every drawing I do, there's always parts of it that are my favorite to work on. Can you guess which part wasn't my favorite? Did you guess her hair? You'd be correct.

Whitney has beautiful 4A curls and in the reference they were in what seemed to be a twist out. On the left side of the drawing her hair created less of a twist and more of a kinky curly texture. I had to figure out how to create this texture while at the same time capturing the shine her hair reflected. To accomplish this, I made scribbles with my lightest pencil in the areas that reflected light. Then I layered with darker pencils. I left pockets of lighter scribbles to convey shine. This was challenging and a bit tedious. Needless to say, I almost panicked! But with a little music, frequent breaks, and determination I got it done. By the time I was finished, I'd taught myself  a whole new way to see and draw hair. I was quite proud.

My favorite part of the drawing was her lips. And not just Whitney's lips in particular. I find that I really enjoy drawing lips in general. I love the shapes and sizes and emotions they can create in an expression. I love to convey the folds in pierced lips and the shine of lipstick or gloss them. For some people the eyes make the picture come to life. For me, it is the lips. Once I get the lips done, I feel better about the picture as a whole.

There was one other challenging part of this portrait and it was the roses. Roses have several folds and shadows, but I was up for the challenge. I really wanted to border her face with flowers because quite frankly, its pretty and eye-catching. Yes, I can be a girly girl.

This drawing taught me a lot technique-wise and I hope to learn much more from future endeavors.