Stages of a portrait sketch

Now that we have been working with a grid system for quite a while I wanted to challenge the students to try to do a portrait free-hand and not use the grid. I find the grid very helpful when attempting to recreate a photograph with pencils but after a certain amount of time the actual objective of these exercises is to encourage students to know how to do it better without the assistance of the grid. Some of the students get frustrated because the end result is usually better with a grid and this is understandable.

While keeping your eraser nearby for lots of changes, we first just make an outline of the face. I think that this is probably the same approach that most people take. REMEMBER! There is no "correct" way to do this so just because it is a system that I use and have been doing this for a while, does not make me correct. If the student has a different method of doing this, I welcome it. Art is not about following xyz steps to achieve an end and someone might have a way that works only for them but it is the best way for them..

The person that this student was trying to replicate has darker skin and dark hair, so she decided to just go over the entire thing with a pencil and then make shading something that they perform after. Remember, there is no wrong way to do this but I actually think this was a good idea because given the subject person, this makes sense since everything is going to be some level of dark.

Then the student erased to compensate for the shadowing and I thought this was a very intelligent approach. I especially like it because it wasn't something that I taught her, she just kind of made it up herself. That is what is so great about art if you really like it: You can invent your own style of approaching a piece and if it works for you, that is good enough.

By the time the class was finished she had made really good progress on this. I was surprised and quite happy with the result this far. It was her decision to write down what type of pencils she had been using so that she could be sure to continue in the same fashion when we reconvene next week. What will the end result of this be? So far it shows a tremendous amount of promise.

Something that made me very happy about this is that the girl in question who was doing the sketch had big smiles on here face throughout because she is actually becoming quite happy with her end results. She is one of the students that seems to truly enjoy these classes and it has been only a little bit because of my tutelage that she has gotten better. Mostly she has gotten better through being given the tools for the job and being encouraged along the way. This is the method to teaching art since there is no real "correct" way of doing things. We just need to motivate the kids and give them the resources to accomplish the job. The rest? Well that is up to them.