
How To Create A Traced Portrait

Supplies:
- Light Box
- Mixed Media Paper
- 2b MONO Drawing Pencil
- Light Eraser
- 05 MONO Drawing Pen
- Dual Brush Pens
- Blending Palette and Pen

1. Place your photo onto the lightbox and turn it on. Place the piece of paper that you’ll be sketching on over top of the photo. I’m using a piece of 90 lb Mixed Media Paper by Strathmore.

2. Trace the photo using a pencil. I like the soft bold lines of a 2b pencil for tracing.
I recommend keeping your sketch fairly simple- trace the main facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, etc) bu don’t worry about getting too detailed and placing lines for every little shadow.

3. Go over your pencil sketch with a black drawing pen. I used a bold 05 MONO Drawing Pen for thicker lines, and erase the pencil.

4. Time to color! You can use a number of mediums to color in your portrait drawing, however I am using Tombow Dual Brush Pens!
To achieve a soft look with the markers, color your ink onto the blending palette, and pick it up with the blending marker, and color with that.

Here is my finished Frida next to the photograph!
