'Keira Knightly' graphite portrait

This portrait of keira knightley is pretty significant to me, as i first attempted to draw it about five months ago, which turned out to be a real disaster. This then really knocked my confidence in drawing portraits and was the main reason why i stopped drawing portraits altogether. I've now tried again and this time finished it, but I now know that i was not technicaly up to a standard to finish it 5 months ago. As even now i found this extremely tough, as i spent nearly 12 hours drawing her hair alone.

At the time I had drawn it pretty well up to this point [link], but for some reason after posting i decided to rub out alot of the face and reshade it. This turned out to be a big mistake and i completely ruined the drawing, and then spent 7 hours trying to salvage it. But i unfortunately couldn't and had to give up and chucked it away, which is something I have very rarely done, as i am really stubborn. This really annoyed me and really knocked my confidence and i then started to question my abilty to draw.

I then decided to not draw a portrait again till i was ready, so went on and concentrated on fanart. And i then used that frustration and decided to give my fanart drawings everything i had, just to prove to myself that i could draw. And after11 days i then finished one my best ever drawings which was the 'Spiderman' fanart. This thankfully restored my confidence and after all these months only now felt ready to attempt it again.

The drawing was done on A4 Bristol Board paper using standard and mechanical graphite pencils. Approximately 30 hours to complete.

Here are some of my other graphite drawings.