Penny & Octavia portrait in progress 5 - My sharpest pencil point

The size of this portrait is 12 x 16 inches, and there are two full figures in it. So some of the details are smaller than my sharpest pencil point!

That makes it challenging to get the details of the features accurate. Working at that small size actually makes it easier to do large areas of skin though - like Octavia’s arms - where the artist has to make all the narrow pencil strokes look like a smooth color. And a smooth transition of color (the elbow).

Her tattoos were finer than a sharp pencil point though!

Here's a close-up. The logo on her apron that is sketched with single lines of sharpened colored pencil shows how fine the lines of the tattoos have to be. (You can see the grainy texture of the paper here.)

A sharp pencil point is a narrow art tool, good for doing fine detail. But for the skin on the rest of her arm, pencil strokes shouldn't show.

"Penny & Octavia", in progress

Portrait of Octavia Stensen and Penny

(Grand Champion Connquest Best of Both Worlds - Westminster Kennel Club Best in Show 2026)

🎨 Prismacolor pencil on “Honeysuckle” Canson Mi-Teintes paper, 12 x 16 inches.

Commissioned by Greg Chan and Theresa Conners-Chan.

From a photo by Claudia Bibaud