Rose

Rose on the beach in graphite

This picture took a looong time, I started working on this one in March! Drawing Rose was relatively easy, though I'm not perfectly happy with the way she turned out. Her head is small compared to her body and her face looks human, but it doesn't look like Rose :/ But drawing her was pretty easy; it was the background that took forever.
First I had to experiment with textures to make the sand look like sand. Then I had to experiment with lighting on the rocks. The water was pretty easy (it's just water up close that's hard!) And then the sky. Gah, the sky! First of all, it's hard to color the sky itself, making it the exact same shade all the way across and making the darker top fade in gradually, all the way across. And then there's the texture. Of course sky doesn't have a texture, but that's exactly why it's so hard. You can get different textures depending on what material you blend the pencil with (for example, I used a rough felt to get the rough, random texture of the same and chamois for the smooth leather of the horses' saddles) but I had to find a very soft material for the sky and it had to be blended well enough that you couldn't see ay pencil strokes. I finally decided on a tissue, but it took a long time because the tissue was too soft and ripped before I had used it much. I used a lot of tissues.
And then the clouds. I kinda cheated on the clouds. After I had completely colored in the sky I took an eraser and erased in random horizontal strokes to get the flat clouds on the horizon. I didn't even try to practice the puffy clouds we usually see. It was going to take more practice that I had time for. I'm going to have to practice that a lot before I get it good enough to put in a portrait.
And then finally, I took my mechanical pencil (I love my mechanical pencils, they're always so sharp!) and painstakingly outlined and colored in the palm trees. Then at last, AT LAST! I was done. There is no doubt in my mind this portrait to the longest. Not even Emmett took this long! Also the background took more time (nd turned out better I think!) than Rose herself. Despite the few flaws I mentioned earlier, I think it turned out well and I'm relatively happy with it :)