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.
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.
Lizzie - II
domenica 8 febbraio 2026
After spending a bit of time creating characters, I decided to take another try at a portrait of my friend, Liz. This time, I was more careful to hold to the centerline of her face and “build out” her cheekbones a bit. I also discovered where I had gone awry in several of my previous portraits. Instead of paying attention to values, I had paid more attention to the colors of the photograph that I worked from as a reference. Once I began thinking in terms of values, I realized that I had made her eyes too light. So I darkened them up!
Characters - I
domenica 8 febbraio 2026
After my forays into portraits, I decided to lighten things up by practicing some characters from Loomis’ work, Fun with a Pencil. I wanted to get back to a sense of playfulness and curiosity instead of focusing on specific angles and proportions. Of course, Loomis also uses a similar approach to characters as he does for portraits, so the practice is still bound to affect my other modes of expression.
Lizzie - I
venerdì 6 febbraio 2026
I don’t know that I have ever practiced so many portraits in a single day as I have done today. After asking permission, I began to work on a sketch of my friend Liz, the same person who encouraged me to seriously take up art in the first place. Even though I was able to capture her likeness in a certain way, something still felt off — the same issue that I had with the portrait of Jodie.
JJ - IV
venerdì 6 febbraio 2026
This is the fourth portrait that I have attempted of my friend, Jodie. I wanted to continue flowing with the texture of hair, and she has some amazing curls and twirls. As much as I tried, something still felt “off” when I finished this portrait, something that took me several days to discover, as I will share in another post.
Classical Portrait - II
venerdì 6 febbraio 2026
In this piece, I continued to work with the shading and made a commitment to stay away from line except for defining around the eyes and lips. I began having a bit more fun with the hair and texture, which allowed me to loosen up this drawing more than others that I had created to this point in my studies.
Classical Portrait - I
venerdì 6 febbraio 2026
After working on Samantha’s portrait, I decided to work more on the three-quarter profile view with the shading technique. At this point I was still more than a bit uncertain with relying upon shading, especially with my focus on using a pen to make marks, not to mention my love of line.
Form & Shading - III
giovedì 5 febbraio 2026
After experimenting with the “Soft Approach” on sample sketches, I decided to attempt another portrait of my friend, Samantha. For some reason, perhaps because I am trying too hard, I found it more difficult to draw someone that I know than a model or copy from a book.
Form & Shading - II
giovedì 5 febbraio 2026
After my first foray into building form, I decided to continue experimenting. This time I used the “Soft Approach” outlined in Loomis’ work, Creative Illustration. This approach makes sense to me, and allows me to add fine details at the very end, after I’ve completed the majority of shading.
Form & Shading - I
giovedì 5 febbraio 2026
As much as I enjoy working with line and pen, lines simply don’t work out as well when trying to depict the human face. With this in mind, I finally decided to take yet another step into the unknown to work exclusively with shading to build form.