Prove yourself as the best artist for the week

Hello my fellow steemians! I hope you are having a great week. Happy new week to you. My dear members of steem fashion&style I am here to share my most recent realistic charcoal pencil drawing piece I did for this amazing contest. This job took me hours because I actually want it to be one of my best for this competition. I hope to win the contest. I also want to use this opportunity to thank @dequeen for organizing this amazing contest. I love this contest because it's a way of bringing out the best in me. However I hope to do my best as one of the great artist in this platform. Thank you as you go through my artwork.

Materials

Paper	Needle Point
Size	16/20 inches
Pencils	Charcoal pencil and Graphite
Eraser	Nataraj vynil eraser & tombo mono zero
Camera	Infinix mobile phone
Duration	Approximately 72 hours
Location	Home

Here are the steps on how I did the artwork.

Creativity comes from logical thinking and reasoning. It's not even about being creative as a content writer. Artist are also creative individuals. They make something out of nothing. It is not difficult for an artist to think outside the box. Artist are critical thinkers with widen horizon of imagination which could be brought to life or reality.
Before starting the drawing I drew my grid lines and made my sketch then started shading it gradually. Sometimes I usually start some of my portraits from the hair, but in his case I started with the eyes before the background, ears, nose, and eyes, down and lips. This is to helps me work downward and from left to right before moving down to the neck. I do this to avoid smudging the part I may have already worked on. I really took my time to include everything in detail. Making sure nothing was left out. From the eyes to the eyebrows and other facial features of the lady. Though I was not counting the strokes but I'm sure I had hundred of thousands of strokes as the hair of the lady

Where I got my inspiration

I was actually commissioned by my favorite client. Her name is Uduak Akpan. She's been one of my number one supporter since 2020 when she asked me to do a commission piece for her elder sister. Since she has been barraging me with commission piece every now and then. I appreciate her for this support and encouragement. It's priceless.

Here are the steps and progress shots.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Close range shots

Finishing

Framed

Reference

My Selfie

I humbly invite @destinedhanik @mercybliss and @jemilatbuhari to participate in this creative contest.

Thanks for going through my blog and artwork as well. I hope you like the portrait, stay tuned, more works are coming. I remain Tempest Art.
Happy steeming friends💙