Updated on by Rita Moreira
Rita Moreira teaches realistic pencil drawing and writes the step by step guides on Desenhos Realistas. Brazilian born and based in Portugal, she went through every article on this blog in 2026 and brought it up to date. What she shares here is the real process, from the first stroke to the final skin texture, with what actually works on paper.
What Rita teaches
Her ground is realistic drawing done by hand, in graphite and charcoal on paper. Most of the blog circles around the face: the eye and the highlight that makes a gaze look alive, the mouth and the volume in the lips, hair built up in layers rather than one strand at a time, and skin with pores, creases and soft transitions.
Around that sits the groundwork every drawing needs: light and shadow, a tonal scale you can control, hatching, blending and texture. The practical side of materials comes with it: pencil grades, paper weight and grain, a putty rubber, a blending stump, and what each one is genuinely good for.
How she teaches
Rita teaches by drawing, and you can hear it in the way she writes. She tells you what happens on the paper: where the graphite saturates too early, where a blending stump smears instead of softening, the point where almost everyone presses too hard.
Each guide follows the order of the drawing itself, from the first light stroke to the final texture, and flags the mistake before you make it. When a material is wrong for what the article teaches, she says so plainly, with no shortcut promised.
Who writes the articles here
The English articles on Desenhos Realistas are hers, and so is the ebook series published by the site. The blog runs in five languages and the byline is the same in all of them, because it is the same teacher.
To see her work by subject, start with the articles in English: techniques, materials, inspiration and drawing as part of everyday life.