Project: Self Portrait. Exercise: Drawing Your Face

This exercise can be found in sketchbook 4 : Pages 50-61

First attempts with charcoal and with drawing pen
The profile drawing is wrong as the face and head as
a whole are too narrow and elongated

Graphite sketches and a dawning done blind while feeling my face
The top left drawing looks too masculine - the brow and chin
are too strong

Just for fun I experimented with placing a sheet of tracing paper
on my face and rubbing graphite over it.The results remind me of ancient
stone carvings.

More attempts with drawing pen and with ink and wash. I am
noticing a tendency to overestimate the size of my eyes and
also a repeated tendency to elongate my chin

Further experiments with different angles and lighting. The face lit from
below looks nightmarish. Some of these angles are from
photographs as it was impossible to see these angles with a single mirror 

Trying to simplify the representation of facial features and looking
more closely at facial proportions.

I had more time to work on the self portrait project because it did not require me to pin down another person to model for me. I try to look in the mirror as little as possible these days as the ageing features don't correspond with how I feel or how I want to look. It is quite difficult to be objective when studying your own face, However, over the multiple sketches I got more familiar and less daunted by the subject.