a tribute to classic elegance

i’ve loved graphite art ever since I was a nine-year-old in Mrs Dorothy’s class and i looked into her little hand-held mirror and drew something that looked nothing like me. but it looked human, at least. and i progressed.

i didn’t pick up a drawing pencil for more than a year prior to 2018 when i had the random inspiration to draw one of the most iconic actresses in history. i made a post about it a while ago: here is my audrey.

https://jul0wow.wordpress.com/2019/02/25/heres-to-classy/

heartened by my apparent success, i threw away half of my life’s saving and bought a box of prismacolor pencils. i drew some more.

• 

  https://jul0wow.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/silver-oxfords/

• 

  whitney

but every morning I woke up and looked across the room to see audrey staring back at me. and every morning I saw the same thing: something about the nose was just WRONG. that perfectionist itch began to scratch.

however my other favorite icon and princess begged just as hard to be imprinted by my amateur hand onto a fresh piece of paper … and there’s only one way to do it: graphite.

so i opened up my pencil case in various shades of gray and just BEGAN. here is my journey of trial – and error, error, error – to attempt to capture the countenance of the lovely goddess herself, Princess Grace.

taking the plunge; getting that initial lead on the paper

a bit more detail

looks a little like grace (what is going on with that eyebrow? XD)

al – most there

here is the finished product; yes, the hair is less than done but after toiling on the face i just couldn’t spend another hour detailing every last strand. maybe someday i’ll go back and finish it, but i’m content for now 🙂

sorry about the weird angles 😛

but ’tis my journey drawing one of my favorite classic actresses and I hope it does beautiful Grace some credit.

i’m amazed at how far i’ve come since last year … Grace is definitely an improvement over Audrey. now i feel like i should go back and draw her again 😛

here’s a link to my pinterest board with the original picture and other lovely shots of all the classic greats: https://pin.it/nle2fma3jw4eva

thanks for reading! power to the local dreamer ||-//

drawn by jul in graphite ❤