How to Draw a Self Portrait
from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can EditWant a sketched picture of yourself by yourself? This takes time and practice, but the outcome is rewarding enough.
Steps
- Take a picture of yourself, against a plain wall that makes your features stand out, or get a drop cloth, you are going to want someone to take several pictures for you in several different facial expressions to get a nice picture of yourself.
- Get a good large enough piece of paper and a drawing tool of your choice, like pencil, charcoal, or ink.
- Draw outlines, lightly, of your major features, like face shape, shape of the hair, and eyes/nose. Your eyes should be 1/2way down your face.
- Add shadows and using your fingers or a smearing tool to smear and the eraser to remove some, when used correctly will start to look realistic.
- For the hair, you will just have to draw each 'thick line' and adding shadows, highlights, etc.
- Keep adding and removing the shadows/lines, until you are finished.
- Find a frame that fits it nicely, and erase the pencil smudges around your portrait to look professional and put it in a frame.
- Hang if desired.
Tips
- Buy a drawing/sketching school book and read it, do the exercises to practice so you understand the shadowing and contour linings.
- Scan it to save a copy on a thumb drive/USB/travel drive so if the original gets destroyed or something there's a backup.
Warnings
- Be careful when erasing the pencil smudging off so you don't rip the paper.
Things You'll Need
- Drawing tool, like pencils/charcoal/ink
- Good eraser.
- Sturdy clean drawing paper
- Sharpener