Well, He...ck. He moved AGAIN!?!?

yes, again, not my best. And bad guessing. Mr. Man WAS sitting still, but then was blocked by two people, THEN when I tried to use the lady sitting in front of me, she decided to look away...THEN the guy got freed up again, but decided to bounce his head all over the place. So you'll see several slight angle changes. Or several larger angle changes..... :-D

Train Woman...

I'm pretty sure this woman knew that I was sketching her. Suddenly she kept turning her head back and forth really fast over and over again, eyeballing me... Hmm.....

A long Weekend....

 This would be from Sunday... Sitting in the pew at my mom's church (I went home to visit...no internets, so no posties). I actually listen better when I have a pencil in my hand...

 Saturday...mom. Her nose is off. it looks thick across the bridge here, but really it's just broad across the base and pretty thin across the top. A line or shadow should probably be in there...

 Monday...back to the hand.

And Tuesday evening... a young girl that was helping out at the MS walk. I hadn't uploaded my photos yet, and went back and picked random person #1 to practice on... :-)

Not too Fond

Not overly fond of this one. I do like the earring. It was a bit of a jerky ride today, so my pen kept going all over the place... :-)

Reading with your mouth open...

This gent was sitting sideways n front of me on the train. He was VERY into the book he was reading... He would close his mouth and it would creeeeeep open slowly. Then he would close it again, only to have it open again... I've done that before. I think lots of people have done that before. :)

No Book

 Today I forgot my book at home. I usually sketch some then read a bit on the way there and back... So I had some extra time. I sketched her vvv on the way to work. She looks pretty pensive. And on the way home I started three different people who ALL got off as soon as I'd figured out the size of their heads. This guy was the last one and he's very general, because I on'y had a tiny bit of time before some lady stepped on right in front of him. And then he scootched back away and I lost sight..... :)

Tiny Lady

A sketch of a little lady sitting on the train. And it's a little sketch. Until she got blocked by a big dude sitting next to her. But it was good while it lasted... :-)

Happy Lady

Now here's another question that I ask myself... if someone has dark eyes, and dark hair... do I add in the color to both? Do I leave them white? Do I do one and not the other? Hmmm.... The jury is still out on that one...

The Horror!!

Wrinkles are deliciously fun. More character to add into the face. The question is WHERE to put them, WHICH ones to pick. Hmmmm.....

A bagel and a hot tea

And this guy. Sitting at the coffee shop, working away and looking VERY serious for a Saturday. :-)

More Cell Phones....

Pretty much every one I catch while I'm sketching nowadays is focused on their cell phone. While it makes it easier to sketch them, since they don't move as much, sometimes while I'm walking I have to dodge an errant cell phone looker because they've got their face buried in their phone and I'd rather not get stepped on...:-)  I like this one. It just felt good before I even started sketching.

Coffeeshop Chatter

These two gents were very intense in their conversation...whatever it was. I DO know that it involved a lot of head tipping. Back and forth, back and forth... :-)

Still Standing

Not my best by any means, but also not too bad considering it was another day standing on the train and I think the engineer may have been trying to break the sound barrier to get us downtown on time. I guess I could have sat down, but that homeless dude looked like he needed his sleep more than I needed the seat.... :-)

Sleepy Lady

On the train again. Today I had to go in early, and so the train was crowded. Luckily, I found a lovely little spot in the back corner, and after negotiating my way around several standing passengers, I leaned against the wall and had a lovely view. This poor lady had a hard time staying awake.  :-)

Train peoples

I sat, happily sketching guy behind when guy in front comes in and has a seat. Well, lucky me. Now I get TWO. Fun day. :)

Cranky in the Sun

somebody was AWFULLY cranky...

Back on the Train

This afternoon on the way back from work I saw this cute couple, both all wrapped up in their winter clothes, sitting next to each other... not talking at all. As I was looking at her, she kept peeking at me. It felt like a tennis match. :-D

Armand Assante

Today the only seat on the train was facing a blank conductor car. Not many people to sketch there. On the way home it was so crowded I couldn't move, let alone sit there with a sketchbook and see a face clearly. Mostly all I was seeing were butts. So why Armand Assante? If you've been on the internet lately, you'll know that some 20 year old found Sylvester Stallone's doppleganger in a 16th century painting. Well, we got into a conversation in the art group about how it sortakinda looked like Armand Assante. I didn't really see it, but that led to discussions about Judge Dredd and the whole thing kinda tipped off onto a tangent. Albeit a fun one. Since Armand didn't get in the 16th century painting, I gave him a 21st century sketch. :-D

Smaller

I rather like this one. Yes, I was sitting on the train, and it was pretty cool because I was steady enough, yet the vibrations of the cars added in some cool markings to this gent's head. I'd have done more, but he had to get off the train a few stops too early. Impressive to me is that aside from the train vibrations, there was the size to contend with. The size of the marker tip, which was kinda thick, against the size of the sketch, which was about three by three inches. Lately I've been filling out an entire 9x12 page. Yay. :)

Phone eyes...

I can always tell when someone's playing with their phone. when I sketch them all I see are single lines after I get through sketching... :-D

Day two of the train

This morning on the train I pulled out the sketchbook. It DOES make the ride go a lot faster. On the other hand, Everyone must have been told that I was on there sketching, because everyone and their brother/sister/mom/dad got on my car, and in the shuffling process I never did get to finish a full sketch. Ah well... the bottom guy was fun to do because I only saw him for a bit and had to go on memory once he got blocked from view. The lady growing out of his head was blocked also, but got off only a few stops past mine. The top one was on the way home. I managed to get a seat in the back corner where I had a clear view past several shoulders of this guy's profile. He had a fantastic pompadour going on :-D

Back on the Train

I've meandered a bit since the conception of this blog. From strictly on the El it's sorta went all over the place. To sketching in the coffee shop, to sketching on the sidewalk, to sketching from photos... which had gone against why I started this in the first place...but I can't regret it. Because I've sketched Every. Day. And if anything I've become more familiar with facial features, and so...when bouncing around on a train, hurling around corners and stopping fast...staring at someone who even asleep is constantly moving...I'm light years ahead of where I was a year plus ago.

This lady was sitting on the train this morning. One of those head bouncers, she sort of wobbled back and forth, forward and backward... but fun practice... :-D

Walking Lady

While I'm not all that in love with being in a place with thousands of other people at the same time, it DOES give me an opportunity to find new subjects. Like this walking lady. Nope. No idea who she is. BUT today I took off the end caps to the drawing pen that I have (small point on one end, large on the other) and got to it. For the most part switching between the two, flipping the pen around. But at times using both in the same area. I don't want to just outline with one then pick certain points with the other. Some times I just want the simplicity of one line. :)

Wild Woman

This is my niece. Yes, she is an adventurer. Fearless. Bold. A Wild Woman. I did another loosely held thick pen sketch on her. She deserves it. I didn't want to go for perfection in line. I wanted to go for perfection in feeling. I kinda think I got her. :)

Zach

This is Zach. He was practice with a loosely held marker pen. Yesterday I had little Alec, with his super short smooth hair, today... not super short. Not so tight.

Monkey

This is my little nephew Alec. He's such a monkey. What this particular sketch doesn't show is the rest of the photograph (it was raining too hard to go have a sketch outside today) which is him dangling from the top bar of a swingset holding onto his little friend there. I think I did a better job on him this time... those little things that threw his face off last time are for the most part resolved... :-D

Outside

Tonight I decided to go outside and peoplewatch, one of my absolute favorite things to do, and took my sketchbook along. I wandered around until I found a large intersection with lots going on. So I plopped myself down and grabbed my pencil and tried something that I don't do a lot of... sketching landscapes en plein aire. Aside from a tired butt from sitting on the cement, two trams full of people pretending that it was Friday night instead of Wednesday night, and a lot of traffic blocking the view off and on, it was quite refreshing. 69 degrees, the bar was hopping (there were a bunch of ladies and gents out there with their motorcycles... something that just recently started happening, but I think is really really cool, as I love motorcycles, and they use orange cones to block off the entire front of the bar to let them park there and eat out front on certain nights... Let's just say I gave tonight an A. A+ if I didn't have a persistent little ant/fly/whateveritwaswithwings trying to use my arm as a landing strip. It tickled. :-D

Bright Sunlight

This is Random Guy. He was sitting behind me at my niece's wedding. I wasn't stalking him, he just happened to be in the photo that I was taking of my nephews. I picked on him today because the amount of wrinkles intrigued me. Part of the wrinkles were age related, the rest were because of a very bright sun that happened to be out. So today was about wrinkles and block shadows. Simplify the shadows a bit more. My only question was what to do with the whites of his eyes... they were in the recessed deeper shadows, but it felt wrong to totally blank them out. Plus it would have made him look like a creepy demon, I'm suspecting...:-D