Tina’s Left Eye

Ballpoint pen sketch of Tina’s left eye.
7.5” x 7.5”, drawn in a Moleskine Sketchpad
with a Bic 1.6mm Cristal ballpoint pen.

This is exercise number eleven in the ongoing video series I’ve mentioned in several previous posts. I felt much more comfortable with the ballpoint pen this time. I’ll take that as evidence that my ol’ brain is creating muscle memory and absorbing the dos and don’ts of crosshatching with a ballpoint pen. These exercises of ears and eyes may seem a bit odd as opposed to sketching and drawing complete people or portraits. But they serve three important purposes:

  • One can complete an eye, ear, small animal etc., in twenty to thirty minutes. That may be all the time one has to sketch each day.
  • It’s really good for your mind, blood pressure and sanity to make a habit of sketching daily. These subjects give you plenty of ideas for doing so.
  • They are excellent subjects for training one’s mind to see and record shapes, values and their relationships to one another. That is, after all, what “drawing” and ”sketching” is all about. Do enough of them and you will get really good at drawing or sketching practically anything. And you’ll get pretty fast at it too.😉

So you see, there is method to the madness. Even so, I have to intermingle the drawing and sketching of other stuff aside from the afore mentioned course. I do that to implement some of what I learn in the course and because I have my own ideas of what I want to draw or sketch.😉 Once you start this daily habit of drawing, you’ll find yourself seeing things each day that you used to just pass by, missing them altogether. And you will be compelled to sketch them or draw them depending on how much time you have. In other words, life will become interesting and you’ll find your own ideas about what to draw. You will rarely be at a loss for “what to sketch today”. 👍

Reference photo for Tina’s Left Eye.
Reference photo of Tina’s left eye.