After finishing Agave, I was browsing YouTube to see how I could improve even more. I knew by then I enjoyed graphite, but it was slow and I felt I had further to grow. Binging Jono Dry’s videos, it suddenly clicked: I lacked confidence. My darkest values were not dark enough, and I didn’t present my subjects with 100% honesty; it was much easier to eliminate the wrinkles, individual hairs, and ugly splotches. In this piece, I promised to trust myself and the process, doing the majority of this piece in 6b (I lacked any darker grades at the time), which was challenging because I felt I didn’t have enough control to be able to make all the values I needed with such a dark pencil grade. Near the end, I had to stop and breathe because I was shaking so much, afraid I would slip up and make an irreversible mistake. But when I finally finished, I couldn’t stop smiling. It truly looked like me, eye bags, messy lashes, and all.