Portrait Drawing

We (my drawing class) have been working on individual portraits from a photograph preferably taken by us (the artist). This is mine of my Niece Amanda when she was about 3 or 4. I am also posting the reference photo I used.

 Reference photo

 "Amanda" Graphite on paper  13"x15"

The purpose of these drawings are to help the Artist to "see" proportions of the face to observe how light hits the face to create a 3-dimentional work. Photography tends to "flatten" objects so as we draw the face, we have to pay close attention to the light. I exaggerated the value of the skin to compensate for the flash of the camera. A better photo would have used natural light. (Back then I wasn't aware of how to take better photographs). A superb drawing would have been from a live model where lighting would have played a key role and an extreme challenge of observation. Most of my students are drawing to help in other areas of their art work and are painting for a hobby, so using photograph reference is what they generally will be using.