I started this project soon after The Golden Path, and my brilliant and super original idea to blow everyone’s socks off so they’d smash like and subscribe was that I’d draw a realistic portrait of a celebrity everyone likes.
I’m an artistic genius I know.
This was part of a bigger plan though. I never took any art classes beyond the ones they offer in high school and just through my own ingenuity and lots of drawing on my own, I naturally became pretty good at it. So I wanted to do a 3 part video series walking through my whole process, from ideation to completion and this Sabrina Carpenter drawing would be the central focus of that series.
It actually took some time before I landed on her. I started with celebrities I am genuinely a fan of — Keith Buckley, Emily Haines, Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides in Dune. But then I figured a mainstream artist may help my videos perform better so I went to the mainstream girls like Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Ariana Grande but eventually, I found this one snapshot from Sabrina Carpenter’s music video for Please Please Please.
So I chose to keep it as low-effort as possible. With something simple like rays of light shining from the eyes, I could keep the tutorial quick and manageable for people just trying out my techniques for the first time.
Plus, since I had started my little “enlightenment period” I thought this modification was a perfect choice. Simple, practical and personally meaningful, like any work of art should be. Sure, it’s still a dispassionate attention grab of a project but I made it my dispassionate attention grab of a project. :’)
This drawing generally went by easily aside from the hair. And that is a BIG aside, holy smokes. I realized about halfway through that this was my first time drawing long blonde hair and MAN this stuff takes time. I was spending hours upon hours on certain sections just to get through a couple square inches on her hair.
Thankfully I started on the left side first which had much more even lighting so the details were detailed and the drawing was exhausting. I was so grateful that the right side was overexposed because that meant I could leave the majority of it as just empty space.
As mentioned above, here is the video. You may recognize the style of editing if you’re into those relaxing cooking videos from people that run street food stalls and restaurants. I was super into those when I made this and I thought the style worked for a drawing video as well.
Short answer, no. And I don’t appreciate the attitude. After posting a bunch on Instagram and TikTok and the 2 longer setup videos I made before I got to the actual drawing, I quickly learned what it means to appeal to the algorithms because, this video is currently sitting at a whopping 113 views and that’s pretty average for me.
But what helps me sleep at night is that this isn’t my day job, this is my hobby. I enjoy drawing and making videos so while it may take some time to take off, if I ever do, I won’t stop. And I take comfort knowing that this is a seed I’m planting and eventually, it may pay off.
If you want to see more, check my social links below and tell your friends. It’s neat I swear.