Hold Yourself Together

I wanted to do a different style of self portraiture and make it original and meaningful as well as encorporate my love of photography and drawing. The use of my hands holding the picture together is supposed to symbolize how many people like to keep everything in their lives together by themselves(including myself), and the sullen look on my face represents how trying to 'hold yourself together' can be emotionally straining. It's impossible to be perfect or to keep everything together on your own. That's sort of the general idea behind the portrait.

Medium: graphite
Size: 14"X 20"
Tools: Staedtler Mars Lumograph graphite pencils (HB, 2B, 4B, 6B, 8B<--I used an entire 8B doing the background ), kneaded eraser, masking tape, tissue, blending stump
Time: I didn't really count, but I'd estimate...about 15-20 hours, the longest I've ever taken on a drawing