Working with Realism in IB Art

Hello. :D My name is Darya Kaborda. I am in IB Art for the next 2 years. My field is realism. I love making things look realistic. If the drawing or painting looks like you can reach in and touch it, I will love it no matter what the subject is. I am sort of trying to achieve photorealism, in a way, but this piece doesn't demonstrate it. To start off, I gridded the canvas, and drew the lines in. Somehow, I ended up skipping or adding in a block at the bottom near her arm, so I have to fix that and incorporate the error into the drawing. The hair is what I was afraid of the most. It took the most time and patience. I usually never spend lengthy periods of time drawing hair in portraits, and, to be honest, this is my first real portrait of a person I know. The drawing is of Caley Doud, a good friend of mine. She took the picture for me, and I printed it out on 2 pages so it would be bigger than just one page. I wanted to be able to see the detail, but it failed. My printer didn't allow me to see most of the detail that the actual picture shows. I have to work from a torn up, colored, messed up photo of her, and that's a shame because I feel like I will not accomplish what I desire through that sort of reference. I wanted to make focus the main part of the drawing in the face, and I hope I have done that, even though the amount of hair can be distracting. It's difficult to shade accurately because of the reference picture, too. So far, I like the face the most. Her arm is poorly drawn, though. I need to fix it, still. At the moment, I am still going to spend some more time touching up the face, hair, and shirt. I have gotten a critique that the shirt needs to be worked on more, so I will take that advice and try to make the shirt look more realistic. After I finish the hair, I will be satisfied, and then I will do final touch-ups. That's about it. :D Thanks for reading. ^__^

- Darya Kaborda