Hello wonderful Steemians! Recently I have been really fascinated with the bokeh effect (the blurry representation of out-of-focus areas in high quality photos). This portrait should be third of such I'm doing, though I never really took it serious before.

I had been studying photos and drawings with bokeh backgrounds in the past week then coincidentally got commissioned to do this drawing with a very rich background. It was the perfect opportunity to practice!

The process

I started with the head tie, another item I love drawing so much, purely done with charcoal.

After which I did a long marathon on the face, neck and chest. I mostly used graphite for the face, except for the eyes, shadows under the nose and lips. Charcoal exclusively for the neck.

Then the beads and blouse

And finally, the part I was anticipating the whole time, the bokeh effect!

This should give an idea of the materials I used

It was a little challenging at first, trying to smoothen out charcoal all over the background. The secret of the bokeh effect as I discovered is blending, lots of blending. You can't leave any hard lines or rough edges, it all has to be smooth to achieve that crisp blurry effect. I blended with blending stomps, tortillons, cotton buds and brushes. I was really satisfied with how it turned out though, can't wait to do it again and better!

One more thing, there were people I the background, how many can you count?

Summary

Status: commissioned
Size: 12x10 inches
Medium: charcoal and graphite
Duration: 25 hours

Thanks for reading. Kindly upvote, comment and resteem. Feel free to ask any question too.

PEACE