How to learn portrait drawing

Hello,

Here’s my self-portrait in graphite pencil and charcoal. Could you tell me how to improve?

Thank you,
Antonio

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Dear Antonio,

Thank you very much for your wonderful portrait. I like this artwork very much; it is a great reproduction of a photo and I’m sure you put a lot of effort into making it.

The way to improve your portrait drawing skills is to draw from life, not from photos. The way I could tell that it’s a copy is by a very pronounced photo-perspective. The head proportions are distorted by photo lenses.

Do not get me wrong, there is nothing bad in using photos for reference, but if you are still learning, copying would slow down this process or even may stop you from getting strong constructive drawing skills altogether. This is because you may get used to drawing from flat images rather than judging perspective and foreshortening by eye when drawing real 3D objects from life.

I understand that getting a model might be a challenge, but as your artwork shows, drawing self-portraits is the easiest way of having a model at all times.

I wish you all the creative success you deserve.

Kind regards,

Vladimir London
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