The original by Irvin Rodriguez (2016) is in ink on Hahnemuhle Copperplate paper, mine is in pencil and conte on the page in the book and I really struggled with this. The angle of the head, the ‘baby’ features (mine looks a little older, less chubby) and the expression. Every correction brought another problem and eventually I came close to running out of road trying to erase where there was little leeway to do so.

What I’ve learned though is that despite all these difficulties and a few oddities of proportion, if the original were not to hand – and I’m sorry I can’t include this as it’s copyright – I would be happy to have drawn a passable child.

Given this is just my second(?) portrait and the book my only copying experience, I believe there’s progress here that I can build on and that will stand me in good stead later in the course. One more to go and then I can start on the figure drawing edition.