I’m working on a pencil portrait of my son for graduation. This was my first attempt.

I always imagine myself sitting down to draw and everything just comes out right the first time. All the proportions are spot on and all the shading and line thickness just flows.

Somehow that drawing nirvana continues to elude me.

I did this freehand. Occasionally I checked proportions. Erased a lot. This is pretty good. Not perfect, but enough  of a likeness.

I used my iPad and Adobe Shape and Photoshop for the iPad to compare my lines to the actual picture. It looked like this:

Not too bad. But this does show where the nose is off, the eyes are too close and the lips are out of line.

This was a fun exercise, but I think I need a different picture of him. This one was too grainy and small to work from.