AFRICAN BEAUTY ON GELE HEADGEAR | 100% charcoal pencil portrait.

Hello steemians! Happy new year to everyone. I hope you had a great week. Happy weekend to you. My dear members of @worldofxpilar I am here to share my most recent realistic charcoal pencil portrait of my recent commission piece I did for my Friend Teejay. Last year we did a few jobs. hopefully think this year will be better than last year.
For those who don't know the meaning of "GELE" here is brief history about it.
The Gele is a head tie worn primarily by women in Nigeria and West Africa. It emanated from the Yoruba culture, and its origin is hard to trace. Many archival photographs over a century old suggest that Gele has been around much longer than when those pictures were taken
(African Arts, 2020).

Materials

Paper	Mat paper
Size	2 X 3 feet
Pencils	charcoal pencil and powder
Eraser	Tombo mono zero and nataraj vynil eraser
Camera	infinix mobile phone
Duration	Approximately 1 month
Location	Home

Here are the steps on how I did the portrait.
I drew my grid lines and made my sketch then started shading it gradually. Sometimes I usually start some of my portraits from the hair, but in his case I started with the eyes, down to nose and lips. This is to helps me work downward and from left to right before moving down to the clothing. I do this to avoid smudging the part I may have already worked on. I really took my time to include everything in detail. Making sure nothing was left out since I was told that my client will really appreciate a good work. And I know myself. I know I'm always committed to excellence regardless of who my client may be.
I myself love how I went about detailing her headgear but nothing took my time like the headgear and her clothing, I really wanted it to look realistic so it will shock my client.

I really appreciate when clients expresses their reaction towards my finishing.
Just go through the progress shots. I hope you learn from me.

Step 1

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Step 10

Finishing

Reference

Thanks for checking my blog and artwork as well. I hope you like the portrait, stay tuned, more works are coming. I remain Tempest Art. I hope you love the portrait
Happy steeming friends👍