Rajacenna is an 18-year-old self-taught artist from the Netherlands who draws the most realistic portraits I have ever seen, using only pencils.

I’m a big fan of realistic drawings, and I’ve previously featured amazing works like the pencil drawings of Paul Lung, the ballpoint pen portraits of Juan Francisco Casas, or Cristina Penescu’s detailed scratchboard masterpieces, but at only 18 years of age Rajacenna is in a league of her own. Born in 1993, she started modelling for various Dutch companies when she was only 4, and at 5 years old she made her first appearance on television. She starred in films, soap-operas and tv-series and at 12 she became the host of Kinderjournaal, the first Dutch web-tv for kids.

She only took up drawing in 2009, and although she had never taken any art classes she produced some stunning pieces. Rajacenna was immediately approached by an American publisher who wanted to feature her drawings in a book called ‘American pencil portraits 2″ which contained drawings by some of the most talented people in the art world. She became a professional artist at the age of 17 and has since then created incredibly realistic portraits of celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber. On her official website it says “according to experts, there is nobody at such a young age with such a talent for drawing realistic portraits like she does.” and looking at her works I’m inclined to agree.

When she first started drawing, Rajacenna would complete one of her pieces in about 20 minutes, but the more her skills improved the longer it took her to finish her increasingly detailed masterpieces. Now, finishing a single drawing can take around 40 hours or more. This is one of the reasons why the young talented artist is currently on a break from drawing. On her Deviant page it says she has worked really hard in the past year and her left hand needed some rest, but she will start work on some new drawings soon, and she says her skills have improved a lot since she last posted videos of herself “in action”. Not much more room for improvement, if you ask me, but then again, I’m not an artist…