Month Four

Yesterday, I worked at the Minnesota State Fair Foundation, so here is month 4 of a 12 month series. Each month, I've been waiting until I'm leaving work for the day and I spend about 15 minutes or so doing a quick sketch.

This was a loose sketch and it was enjoyable to do.

Facial features are still a challenge. Today, I picked up the book, Five Minute Sketching People, from the library and read a little bit of it at lunchtime. It had good tips regarding general guidelines of how certain facial features compare to other facial features. For example if you look at a person straight on, most people are about 5 eyes wide in the plane that includes the persons's eyes. When I sketch, I try to sketch what I see, but I think some general "rules" like this might help, since experience has shown that I actually don't always see so well with my eyes.

Another general guideline is that eyes typically are at the half-way point in the height of a person's face. That's not how my drawing turned out. I'll double check this the next time I see the actual historic bust.

I'm sure these guidelines are out there in the world everywhere, but there's so much to learn and to know that it's the first time I've come across some of them. Again, my goal is to try and sketch what I see, but it's good to have some back-up knowledge to cross-check things.

Finally, I love that I can check out so many sketching books at the library. It helps me make better choices  about which ones I would like to own.