Profile Picture of Leighton Meester!!!

First of all who doesn't love Leighton Meester?! So when I was presented with my first real project in art for the year, to say the least I was already inspired.  The project assigned to my class was to create a profile view portrait of anyone of our choosing and to find a picture to use for our portrait.  So I spent that night researching pictures of my favorite actresses, starting with Kate Bosworth, and then finally finding the perfect picture of Leighton Meester, which you can find below (don't wory Kate Bosworth got to be my muse for my second project :P).  Using only shading pencils, I attempted to recreate the very sensual black white photo of her. 

I believed that I succeeded in my portrait, but with all forms of art there are strenghts and weaknesses in the work.  Let me start of by saying that I haven't taken an art class since I was in first grade, so found my work to be fairly impressive.  The picture of my portrait isn't of the best quality so I will try to repost a better one later on.  But it is good enough for me to give you an evaluation of my work.  I attempted to show a whole value of shade, and succeeded, but I now know as the year has moved on in the class, that I should have used a lot more shading in my translation.  Texture is a large part of my photo since I constructed Leighton's hair by drawing each strand individually.  Her hair looked almost as if it is was alive since the swirls of strands added volume that kept her hair from looking flat. And lastly I feel that the drawing has a lot of movement which makes her almost come alive.  The slight curvature of her back, and the bending of her neck adds to the very interesting element of movement in the picture.

Overall I believe that my picture of Leighton Meester is quite fabulous if I don't say so myself :)  Although it might not have done Ms. Meester's beauty the highest possible justice, it did do the job of portraying my favorite actress!  Hope y'all like it!

*This image was taken from https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqA8LUBHDmTdKddXUUwNId7_v-_oZwMzD4FEc7KGKEfBDmq2RjLCVNsETwxizRTbD_uE1K6vVrMYPqSuBuR2bZe4gDzVhh5ZQx0tjwDt6cpcBA88uc6afmB3zw9qin2Sy-PsLorFnYP5Q/s640/LeightonMeesterMarieClaire.jpg* Thank you fellow blogger!!!!