The fundamentals to make a charcoal portrait

Rad Educators is a 1-year program intended to help beginner artists learn step-by-step techniques from professional artists across different mediums. This is in no way sponsored or promoted by any particular Art Brand.

Amit Kumar Meena is a rad educator for charcoal painting

1) Proportions

-Before trying to start shading your portrait, make sure your portrait is proportionate.

- You can use grid method to make the outline of your portrait

- Make sure to give it ample number of hours

2) Shading from one direction

- Instead of shading everything at once, choose a direction.

- You can shade from top to bottom or left to right, if you’re using grids, this is prove to be very helpful.

3) Layering- light to dark

- In hyper realistic portraits, the depth of layers makes the portrait hyper realistic.

- while shading, keep in mind to start shading very lightly

- Gradually start making the darker details my shading over the first layer of powder

4) Divide your time wisely

- Hyperrealism art usually takes a lot of time, so don’t try to do it in one go.

- Try to capture all the possible details and for this to happen, you’ll have to be really patient

- Give yourself time limit to finish a piece of art and divide it according to your schedule. You can exceed the time if required but don’t try to finish your art quickly.

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