I always loved drawing, but I wasn’t one of those kids who could create imaginary worlds. I drew things I could see. Early on, I copied a lot of what I saw in books. Later, when I was taught some drawing techniques, I enjoyed rendering objects like old boots or gothic architecture. Perhaps I’m too pragmatic to have a wild imagination.

So when I started to make art again (which you can read about here), it was drawing that held my attention. I’ve written about that first project and how it began (here) but since most of those portraits are not currently on my website, I thought I would share them in a blog post.

The portraits were drawn from candid photographs I took in towns and cities as close as my own neighborhood and as far away as Hong Kong and Paris.

I used standard graphite pencils (7b and 8b) and a smooth white paper given to me by a commercial printer. Each drawing is 20 x 26 inches.

The examples shown below came after a couple of dozen smaller portraits that I started in 2011 when I began to draw again. The first portraits were 11 x 14 inches.

I worked exclusively on portraits nearly every day for two to three years.

Eventually, I began painting portraits in watercolor and acrylic paint. I’ll share those in another post.

At the bottom of the page, I have included the Artist Statement I wrote about the series.