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.
