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Artist Spends 200 Hours Bringing This Amazing Hyperrealistic Drawing to Life

By Margherita Cole on June 11, 2022

Some works of art are realistic, while others appear so true-to-life that they blow your mind. New York-based artist Dylan Eakin spent 25 days—approximately 200 hours—working on a large-scale hyperrealistic drawing that looks just like a real person. Using a combination of graphite and charcoal pencils, he rendered the young woman cupping her face between her hands while expertly sketching the texture of her skin, hair, and clothes so that they fool the eye.

The finished piece is called Nothing But a Foundation, and it is Eakin's most recent photorealistic drawing to date. “I'm absurdly proud of this one,” he says on Instagram. To bring such a spectacular portrait to life, the artist based the figure on a real person (known on Instagram as @iamtheforest). Over the course of a couple of weeks and countless hours, he studied the model's likeness and translated it onto paper.

Eakin places the female figure in the center of the tall and narrow composition. She frames her face between her two hands while also slightly pulling the skin at the corners of her eyes. It is hard to determine what emotions are passing through the subject's mind as she keeps her eyes closed and her lips barely parted. Behind her dark locks is a wooded background that is slightly out of focus, making it seem as though we are looking at a black and white photograph and not a work that is hand-drawn.

You can preorder a limited edition signed and numbered print of Nothing But a Foundation for $850 via Eakin's online store, and keep up to date with his latest projects by following the artist on Instagram.