drawing: before pictures

so here’s my “before” self portrait. it kinda looks like me, though madam didn’t recognise it was me until i took my glasses off she reckons it looks like me after i’ve had a shower cos i didn’t draw in all of my hair. my pencil kept breaking so i took that as a sign to finish, it took about 10 minutes. the features are all wonky cos i didn’t try particularly hard to get them in exactly the right places – mostly cos i didn’t have a rubber, so i didn’t want to draw guide lines. so the individual bits are quite a good representation, but their overall arrangement is all to pot. i could only find a 6b (though in general i prefer really soft pencils) so it’s a bit over-contrasty.

my second “before” picture, my hand. it looks a little freaky, mostly because of the high contrast again i think (though this was a 3 or 4b) but also just cos hands are a kind of freaky thing to draw. i took longer over this, at least half an hour, but i got bored before i finished the arm. i’m pretty happy with it. the thumb is a bit fucked up but the rest is okay. i’m pleased with the overall shape and how all the bits relate to each other, i like the way i got how my middle finger curves outwards compared to the others (so it’s my hands that are wrong, not my drawing ). i’m particularly pleased that the fingers look like fingers and not all sausagey.