Portrait of a Child

I fell in love with this photograph [link] and had to try and draw it that very instant - of course it took me much longer than than that - probably around 50-60 hours to finish this one.  One of the reasons for the length of time, was the fact that its big - around 60cm by 50 cm the largest portrait i have undertaken, and probably the last portrait this size for a while also!! Oh and yes I did draw that large area of black to the left - nightmare!!

The reference is from a wonderful photogrpher called simply 'Robert' and you can see more of his work here [link] he is awesome, but please ask for permission before using his work - it isnt stock! 

Materials - large smooth locally sourced unbranded paper, my trusty 4B mechanical pencil, 8B Faber Castell for the dark areas, HB and 4H Faber-Castell pencils, blending stumps and buckets of eraser

I have managed to take dozens of photographs at each stage of the drawing, and eventually I will get around to creating a short animation to show how it was created - I will keep you posted

Thanks for looking - hope you like it as much as I do

****Update****Update****Update****

As Promised you can find a short animation of how I drew 'Portrait of a child' here (just click the thumbnail below )