Grier Stockman drew this self-portrait of herself with her horse Lad for a school art class. She worked painstakingly on the portrait for more than four months, sketching it from a photo.

The eighth grader, who attends Princeton Day School in Princeton, N.J., created the piece with the help of her art teacher, Susan Reichlin, who suggested how to create a realistic image. Reichlin put a grid over the photo and told Stockman to make the same grid on a poster board. Then Stockman referred to the grid when she was drawing and shading the portrait. She said the hardest part was getting the shading just right on her face.

“I really had to work hard on the face,” she said.

Stockman said Lad was fairly easy to sketch. Lad is a 15-year-old Mustang who came from a relative’s ranch in Montana. “He was the most favored wrangler horse,” Stockman said.

Stockman said she’s considered showing Lad in Western classes. “He’s a really spirited horse and its fun to ride him,” she said.