Another impressive portrait drawn by a pre-teen student

In the next week or so we are going to move to more advanced materials in our art lessons. One of the major things is going to be charcoal instead of just lead pencils. This can be a bit of a problem because you can't just erase charcoal like you can with a pencil. I mean, you CAN, but it requires a lot of rubbing to the point where you are likely to destroy the medium - which is usually paper - in the process and that's not good.

Before we moved on though a few of my students brought back some finished or near finished portraits that we worked on a few weeks ago.

I have noticed some improvement in what some of the students are doing and this was mostly due to the grid system that I taught them to use. I am trying to wean them off of using the grids but a lot of them still feel more confident using this process and that is just fine.

This portrait was made by an 11 year old and she didn't offer any information as to who it is. Maybe it is a celebrity or just a friend. I don't know but I thought it was a very good replica of a real picture and I commended her for her work.

She was honest with me and told me that she used some grid to make this because she doesn't trust herself (her words) when it comes to drawing noses and eyes and I can completely understand that. She did tell me that she used a lot of erasing and once again, this is fine. This is the reason why we are still using materials that can be corrected. It gets quite frustrating when you are using oil-based paints or something similar because you can't just go and have a do-over. I try to discourage the use of digital methods of making drawings because many of those programs basically make the art for you and what's the point of that? If students want to use it that is ok. I'm not an overlord or anything but I will know if a student all of a sudden goes from barely being able to make a face to being able to do an exact replica of the Joker from Batman or something like that.

So next week we will start using charcoal, which is another quite inexpensive product to make art with. Perhaps I will do a little tutorial about it over here, if I have time.

In the meantime continue doing whatever art makes you happy and remember, there is no such thing as a right or wrong way to draw!