Sketchbook
Welcome to my online sketchbook. Here you will get a window into my approach, what inspires me, and progress on my latest projects. This year, I have decided to focus on portrait and figure drawing to help round out my explorations in architecture.
Reclining Figure - I
martedì 17 febbraio 2026
After working on portraits for the better part of a month, I decided to explore something different. Figures are tricky because they involve flowing lines. Any interruption or discontinuity will cause one’s eye to stop and focus upon that area — even for just a bit. While these discontinuities can be used to add emphasis, they can also cause one’s eye to abruptly stop and fixate on a particular area instead of taking in the whole.
Eyes - I
martedì 17 febbraio 2026
After my issues with the three-quarter profile view, I decided to branch out a bit and just focus in on eyes. As fate would have it, a group of children with their mothers were curious as to what I was working on, so I took the time to show them my sketches and the book I was working from. One of the girls remarked “nice job, you’re doing well”, which totally made my day as children see with their souls as much as their eyes.
Three-Quarter View - II
martedì 17 febbraio 2026
This was another attempt at working through a three-quarter view portrait. Part of the issue was that I attempted to rush things, but I also tried working with a variety of techniques here as well. I have found that when I rush, I tend to revert to using lines, instead of relying upon shading to bring out the features of the face. Also, the black pencil, while adding more impact, also is smudgier and tends to get a bit more messy.
Black Ink - II
lunedì 16 febbraio 2026
I really wanted to see what would happen when working with large swaths of black ink. This is a combination of black India ink and brush pen. All in all, I was happy with how the thin line work came out, but was less enthralled with the hair. I have a feeling that I will attempt another version of this style, but that it may be more suited to a combination of traditional and digital approaches — especially given my desire for geometric lines in the hair.
Lizzie - III
domenica 15 febbraio 2026
This was another attempt to create a portrait of my friend, Lizzie. This time I used the Staedtler Mars Black pencils, which proved to be quite tricky given the fair features of my friend. I still have quite a bit of work to do, but I was curious how much my perspective had shifted in the past week.
Full On - I
sabato 14 febbraio 2026
This was another experiment with the black pencil and the color accents for the eyes and lips. I am getting closer to running another experiment in ink to see how this will translate into a different medium. I had fun with the hair in this piece, as well as the shading of her cheekbones and around her neck.
Looking Up - I
sabato 14 febbraio 2026
This was an experiment with head position, shadow, and pencil. This rendition came out a bit better than my first attempt, Baby Face - I, where I shortened the distance between the nose and the chin. While my chin angle is still off in this sketch, I was able to get a more adult-looking face and better cheekbone definition on the right side of her face.
Three-Quarter View - I
sabato 14 febbraio 2026
After revisiting the shading planes, I decided to experiment with a new set of Staedtler Mars Black pencils that had come in the day before. These pencils have a much greater impact than the regular graphite pencils. I was able to get a better head tilt and insights into shading thanks to the exercises that I have been exploring.
Facial Planes - I
sabato 14 febbraio 2026
After working on profile views, I decided to revisit the facial planes that I was introduced to several weeks ago. As with my other explorations, I found the planes much easier to construct with a larger head. This is a standard exercise that I will continue to revisit so that I have a better idea of the plane that light tends to fall upon for the face.
Sara - II
venerdì 13 febbraio 2026
After my first attempt yesterday, I decided to work on another portrait of my friend, Sara, this time in color. I also wanted to adjust the angle of the head and chin, compared to the previous portrait. All in all, I had fun with this even though it is difficult to keep the colors clean when using the black pencils.
Sara - I
giovedì 12 febbraio 2026
I am extremely grateful to my friend, Sara, who had the insight to ask whether I worked from photos and if it would help my work if she sent me a few of herself. This is my first attempt at creating a portrait of her, in profile nonetheless. I can honestly say that this is the first profile of a person that I know that I am pleased (and even pleasantly surprised) with how it came out. I will most likely attempt another version of this with some combination of black and colored pencils.
Profiles & Proportions
giovedì 12 febbraio 2026
After running into issues with proportioning in profile, I decided to go back to the basics and work with a few sketches to practice my head angles and tilts. The truth of the matter is that mastery of any discipline requires one to constantly return to and revisit the fundamentals. Rather than being simply, the basics are the foundations for more advanced techniques, perhaps explaining why Eastern philosophies speak of returning to the “beginner’s mind”.
Black Ink - I
mercoledì 11 febbraio 2026
After working with pencil, particularly the black Staedtler Mars, I was curious as to how this would translate into ink. As with my sketches, I began by creating an outline with the regular HB pencil, and then began inking over it. While I was able to develop some interesting textures with the hair and incredible density with the eyebrows, I am much more partial to pencil and paint for the shading of the face.
Baby Face - I
mercoledì 11 febbraio 2026
This was my second attempt with using the Staedtler Mars Lumograph Black pencils. This time, I decided to work with a profile. As you can see, I mis-measured the distances and proportions of the face. By not placing the chin down far enough, this portrait fell into the proportions for the face of an infant — hence its title.
Mars Lumograph Black - I
martedì 10 febbraio 2026
This was my first time using the Staedtler Mars Lumograph Black pencils and I was not disappointed. The pencils are very easy to use and actually erase quite well. More than anything, I am impressed by the impact of the black on the white, as well as how well the black photographs for quick posts and such. I created the basic outline using a regular HB and then filled in with the black. From there, I used blue and red watercolor pencils to fill in the colored accents for the eyes and lips.
Exploring Values & Tones - III
martedì 10 febbraio 2026
After seeing the dramatic difference in Samantha and Jodie’s portraits, I just had to go back to the initial sketch of my friend, Lizzie. Just as with the two previous portraits, darkening the eyes shifted the entire context of the piece — as you can see below by the two comparison photos.
Exploring Values & Tones - II
martedì 10 febbraio 2026
Once I saw the difference that filling in the eyes on the portrait of Samantha made, I decided to revisit the portrait of my friend Jodie. Sure enough, her eyes were no where near as dark as they should have been. Scroll down below to see the difference such a small change can make to the overall look and feel of the drawing.
Exploring Values & Tones - I
martedì 10 febbraio 2026
After working on the second portrait of my friend Lizzie, I decided to go back and check on the values in my other portraits. Sure enough, the eyes were too light for the overall depiction of the face. Here you will see the same portrait of Samantha as before, just with darkened eyes. The original is below for comparison.
Side Profile - I
lunedì 9 febbraio 2026
Similar to the day before, I decided to play with creating a portrait after working with some characters. Once again, I turned to Loomis’ book for a general model so that I could work with a three-quarter view. Aside from the lips, eyes, and eyebrows, I was careful not to place too much emphasis upon the line work, choosing to work with value and shadow.
Characters - II
lunedì 9 febbraio 2026
After working on another portrait, I decided to play with characters again. The characters are interesting to work with, since they are essentially an amalgamation of different shapes molded or modeled onto an initial sphere. As these pieces illustrate, characters can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and modeled in a variety of ways.