I used to draw and sketch a lot. From age 5 to age 12, I would draw and sketch every week. Ever since high school, for some reason, I’ve been drawing and sketching less and less. As I entered my early-twenties, it had stopped all together.
In the recent years, I’ve come to realize that drawing a great form of mental exercise. It’s a similar exercise to writing. Like writing, it should be done more often.
In February of 2014, I set the goal of drawing and sketching every day. I didn’t the accomplish the goal. Though I did managed to draw on 180 days of the year — just about every other day.
Below are some of the what I had done in my sketchbook. They tend to fall in to three different categories: real objects, photographs and recreating the works of others.
Real Objects
Many of these were objects within my reach at the time of the drawing. I simply tried to recreate them on paper.
Recreating the Works of Others
These ones below are reproductions of other artists’ work.
I did a poor job documenting many of the sources, so when I searched for the original works today, I couldn’t find a lot of them again. Most of them were reproductions of great artworks I found on Behance and Dribbble.
Based on Photographs
Many of these were based on photographs I took and images found on book covers and greeting cards. Once again, images that were available near me at the time were used as inspiration.
Portraits
Human faces are the hardest to draw in my opinion. I spent a lot of time drawing from photographs. I drawn and redrawn some of these faces below — some of them were portraits of authors, or smiling faces from marketing brochures.
This Is Not a Test
There were definitely times when I thought this drawing exercise had become a chore. In those times, I had to remind myself that this should be fun. It is fun if I make it so. I decided to sketch out moments from life. The fun of it came back.
I’ve Learned
That sketching and drawing is a very rewarding activity. It is about capturing the essence of reality and representing it in a way that makes sense. In this sense, it is a problem solving endeavour, relatable to many other activities.
Do I intend to still draw everyday in 2015? Perhaps not, but I will continue to draw and sketch often.
