Welcome to Art for Beginners

My name is Josh Oropeza I made this site to help teach people who are wanting to become artists in the future by giving some tips and a little bit about myself like what inspired me to get into drawing. I'm sharing drawings I've made over the years primarily the ones I've made myself starting with the first image you see on the home page.

I've put images of my other drawings on the tips which I will explain more on starting with an expressive self portrait.For this image that's on this page is an expressive self-portrait where I drew myself as a final assignment in my art class back in December 2017 which was my first year of college.This drawing was the most challenging I had to make sure to have the perfect pose to sketch so I went with the hand resting my head.

TIPS:

The tips I remember doing for this project was using certain numbered pencils each of them represent either the lightness or darkness on each pencil you use,I used a mixture of both light and dark pencils to give make a shadow showing it off along with a little bit of charcoal for the drawing I used a mixture of Chiaroscuro,Crosshatching and Contrast.

My tips for drawing an expressive portrait of yourself would be pick the perfect pose as if you are posing for a picture,have a couple of mirrors right by your side,have the appropriate pencils to start drawing,an option would be going into detail like the face,eyes and hair primarily making it look more realistic and taking time I took time also had to rush through it a little bit not making it look bad but trying to make it look good make it stand out which I kind of explained in my presentation I gave in my art class in college.

Another important part for an expressive self portrait of yourself is also a little bit of shadowing if you want to have a shadow on the drawing it's using a little bit of charcoal and a paper towel a little bit of it only because you don't want to go overboard with shading your drawing don't make it too dark try to make it easier.

The final part is just sign your own name in your own style to show people you've made the drawing and I think people will really appreciate what message the drawing represents.