children at play (pencil drawing)

For last few weeks I am practising rapid sketching where I try to draw sketches in 60/90/120 seconds. This hopefully will help me sketch people on the move, especially children who hardly sit still. These two sketches have benefitted from this practice.

Back to old habits

I used to make portraits from celebrity photographs. With lot of patience and some skill, I was able to copy number of photographs in pencil drawing. But I never seriously practised any drawing techniques. I did not take any training either. So for many years this was the only thing I could do in the art world. Each portrait used to take around 6 to 8 hours (some up to 20 hours) and I had to use as much eraser as pencils. I used to work sq. inch to sq. inch and complete the picture. Since I have now been practising for last 3 months, I thought let me see whether I can do the copy stuff any faster. And this picture was born in around 25 minutes. Though it is not a perfect copy, I feel I was able to catch the essence of the photograph (the meditative concentration) quite ok. What do you think?