Description: “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them”. I have a quick question for all you artists out there, and some of you may know the answer. Who is considered to be the greatest poet and playwright that has ever walked this earth? Now before you answer that question, you might want to think about your response. There has been hundreds of poets over time, which means labeling just one as being the greatest, takes a lot of thought. Yesterday I sketched out one of these said people. And if you're looking at the image as we speak, you may or may not be familiar with the face that is starring back at you. This lesson is going to show you "how to draw Shakespeare", step by step. To call him by his first name would be a lengthy process which is why he is referred to as just Shakespeare. Yes it is true that he is responsible for being one of the greatest influences that changed the way they we write literature. The problem is, there really isn't a whole lot of information of this verbal genius. William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and the only reason why this is known is because his baptism took place on April 26 of the same year, but as to the exact date of birth, that is unknown. Now because of the recorded baptism, we also know that his fathers name was John Shakespeare, who was a town official of Stratford, and his mother was Mary Arden. William also had a few brothers and sisters too, five to be exact. Two sisters, and three brothers makes five siblings, and including himself would make a family size of eight. As a boy William went to Kings New Grammar School where he learned basic reading and writing skills, and that's it. There is no more info about his early life. His history is picked up again in the year of 1582 when Shakespeare marries an older woman. When he was just eighteen years old he married a woman that was twenty six named Anne Hathaway. In just a few months after they where married, Anne gave birth to their first child in 1583. I must tell you that William eventually was referred to as “Bard” after he became a famous poet and playwright. So, all this information on Shakespeare, but still no mention of his first poem recorded? Well, I was getting to that. April 18, 1593 was the year that the Bard entered his first poem called “Venus and Adonis”. He later submitted another poem called “The Rape of Lucrece” on May 9, 1594. By the time 1595 rolled around William Shakespeare was already the official playwright to the King of England. He became a successful artist by 1596, and started to make money and became wealthy. He is responsible for poems and playwrights like “A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet and many, many others. I will leave you with this tutorial on “how to draw Shakespeare", step by step because all art is the same, it's just expressed differently. So being one artist to another, have fun with this lesson, and look for more drawings yet to come. Peace out everyone!