Category: Drawing

Pretend it’s a portrait.

The day job kept me pretty busy today and into the evening. But I did manage to get some art time in and did this watercolour and ink sketch of Fran Lebowitz. I had never heard of her until watching the Netflix series “Pretend It’s a City”. I really enjoyed it and thought she was interesting and funny. Love her style and grumpiness.

Fran Lebowitz sketch

I’m pretty happy with this. I tend to tighten up when drawing/painting people but I like the looseness of it. I would have liked to work on it a bit longer but this is all I had time for today.

Famous Faces

Abraham Lincoln is the first face that I remember feeling compelled to try to draw. Many years ago in junior high school while learning about the American Civil war, I would study the high contrast, black and white photos of Lincoln in my history book. I would stare at his photo so long and so intently that sometimes it felt like I was transported back in time.  His wrinkly, weathered face and scraggly beard was too much to resist and so I spent an entire semester drawing his face over and over.

Back then I would have drawn with a ball point pen or a number 2 pencil and I would have tried very hard to reproduce the photo exactly. These days I try for a looser more expressive way of drawing. Here is Lincoln drawn with charcoal.

Abraham Lincoln Charcoal Drawing