The Magic Hand

Happy sunday hivers! I hope y’all are having a blissful day so far, I’m happy to write again.
This post is a reminice of a very notable era or phase of my art life and also to share how i overcame a certain challenge i faced when making pencil portraits.

At some point it was really hard for me to get accurate resemblance while working on portraits until i came across THE MAGIC HAND. Some people call it a cheat code but it’s generally known as grid.
Here’s a picture of the finished work after so much patience using the grid technique.

If you’re not familiar with it, grid drawing is a technique that involves breaking down your reference and drawing surface into equal boxes. Luckily i was able to get a few shots of my work in progress and also a shot of the grid boxes on paper.

It always looks funny from the start because it’s a simple feint highlight of the drawing before shading and bringing it to life. This method might sound technical, but trust me there’s something spiritual about the process that allows me to slow down, to observe without assumption and to shade even the subtlest shadows with clarity

Looking at the background of the portrait carefully there’re different shades of black, some lighter while some are even thicker.

I used to resist drawing with this method because I thought it made my art feel mechanical. But I’ve come to realize that the grid is just a tool and the real magic lies in how your hand responds It’s like having a guide that helps you train your eyes to see what they truly see, not what your brain assumes.

Thank you hive for this platform to express myself, i hope you all enjoy reading this post. I also wanted to add some videos but all efforts failed 😔

                                                                    Wealth 

@jamerussell @imfarhad @fashtioluwa