My Drawing of Frida Kahlo

Happy Women's Day everyone!

To celebrate this day I wanted to draw an inspirational woman, so I thought that drawing Frida Kahlo is the perfect choice. Why? Because, Frida Kahlo was a Mexican artist who constantly fought for equality and social justice, and objected to US involvement in her country.

In order to show Frida's style I had to use colored pencils, which I almost never use. It was a little challenging, but I really enjoyed it, and I think I may even start use them more frequently :)

The process:

Step 1: General outlines using HB pencil

Step 2: Adding details

In order to have the correct hair movement, I drew the hair from the root close to the forehead.

After finishing with the hair around the face, I drew the hair band and added the flowers. I think I never drew realistic flowers before, but I think that for the first time drawing them, it came out pretty good. In order to draw the flowers I first drew the outer petals that and then the inner ones, so it will look like the outer are covering the inner ones.

When I drew the braids, I made sure that I to drew 2 layers. each time different layer covering the other layer of hair.

Step 3: coloring the face

Now, as mentioned before, I usually don't color my drawings so I'm not really good at it. I also don't have many coloring pencils (I only have few metallic color pencils).

In order to color the face I used lightly brown shade of pencil. I add extra shade on the darker areas, like under the jew, around the eyes and on the around the jew line.

Step 4: Coloring the flowers, lips, blouse and jewelry

To color the flowers, I first outlines the general lines of the flowers. I made sure it was bold enough so the it's shape and outlines will be visible after I color the inside of the flower's leaves.

The lips, blouse and the jewelry I made sure to make it bold and vivid like it's usually shown on Frida's portraits.

I also added another layer to the skin color and added some blush to her cheeks.

Step 6: Coloring the hair.

For coloring the hair I used the same technique I used on step 2, but this time I used darker pencil- 7BH pencil. I drew the hair for on the same direction, from the root to the edge. Also when I I filled the braided part of the hair, the eyebrows and the eyelashes I made sure to drew it on the same direction.