Ok here goes.
My effort on the first drawing.
[attachmentid=5371]
For some reason, she don't look quite as sad
as the original, I find.

Thanks for the tutorial.

I notice often that in certain areas, mostly the eyes and mouth, just a little change makes a lot of difference. These are the critical areas.

brb

I've been doing a lot of practice drawings and trying my hand at water color. One of the things I've been studying is the human anatomy.

Knowing the shapes of the skull is very important to the portrait artist. I encourage anyone interested in portraits to sketch a skeleton.

Bob,
Cool job with the skeleton. I have heard this said before, more than once! Thank you for continuing to put up your work and giving info.
Paulette

My oldest son's oldest daughter came by this evening and I got some photos. They had been swimming and her hair was still wet. I liked one of the photos and thought I would do another step-by-step.

I'm posting the photos in case someone wishes to join me. I included the color pic if anyone wishes to do it in color. If you have a program that will do it you can play with the contrast if you wish. I adjusted the contrast on the black and white but not the colored one.

PS. Some skulls look better with skin. ;-0

This is my basic outline. I darkened it so you can see the faint lines. I drew this with hb griphite pencil and it was very light in the original sketch.

I am still using a hb pencil. This is after fifteen minutes of light shading. If you use 4h lead be careful and not press too hard. It will leave while groves in your paper. I learned this the hard way. ;-)

I used a 2b in the hair on this step.

I went back to the hb lead and did more shading. The reason I go back and forth is so I won't lose my ligher lines. I darken the darker areas and then I can go back and darken the ligher ereas more. If i darken the light areas first I might lose the areas that are supposed to be dark. So I darken the each area slowly.

I darkened the hair with b4 and b6 pencils. I also shaded some more on the face and lips.

On the second one I continued to work on the hair.

Wow your drawing is comming along pretty good.

Here is something that look like a skull.
It's a bit crocket.
[attachmentid=5473]

I only had about an hour of drawing time this week. Renovation project.
So I've decided to try my hands at drawing the skull.

Mecharver, it looks good to me, and drawing it should help become more familiar with what is just under the skin.

On the picture of Shanna I continue to work back and forth darkening and shading while moving to the right of the picture.

In these I continue shading and darking useing hb, 4b, and 6b. I found wet wavy hair isn't easy to do.

Bob, your drawing of Shanna is beautiful!! You have no idea how much it helps to see step by step what you do to get to the finished portrait. I love your tutorials, they are awesome!! Thanks for taking the time to do these for us! Elizabeth

When she saw the drawing she said, "Wow, you make me look so pretty." I told her she was pretty, I just drew what I saw.

I finally finished this series of step by step drawings. I worked three days and for fifteen minutes at a time.

I thank Wim Denijs for giving his permission for me to use his photo. I got the picture from his gallery at Artwanted.com.

I darkened the scans so you might see the first light sketch I made.

If you compare these you might can tell that I went over and over darkening the values slowly as I went from one area to the next.

This is going to be a good one!
Paulette

Indeed, a very good one!

This reminded be that I had made an animation out of the Shanna drawings but never posted it. Caution: large file, don't click if you have a modem.

[attachmentid=5892]

Very nice Ernest. I noticed on the one of Ali that the file continued to get larger. So I had to continue to resize it at a lower percentage.

I am wondering if this will change the size if I did an animation of it.



I will post the reference photo last. You will see that I lightened the shadows a lot. I like the details of the eyes to show. I will also post the photo as it looked before I lightened it.

I will try to post the rest of the scans on this post. The last photo is the original.

Amazing as always Bob!
Truly wonderful!

Beautiful!

It amazes me how you get the details, the wrinkles and leather like skin. Really nice and thanks again for taking us step by step.

Awesome job as always Bob!! Keep the portraits a coming..LOL. (You teach so well!!)

I love portraits. I think she is great. Do think that the shadowing above the eyes has made the eyes themselves look smaller? Go going. I can't wait to clear the time to try it. I like working with graphite.
Lorr

Bob You have been a true inspiration and motivation to get out Parks book and refresh myself and try to accomplish some portraits. I have beautiful grandchildren and parents in their 90's for subjects. Your work is what I aspire to . Thank you so much. You are a great teacher and your sharing is such a gift.
Lorr