Last night I looked back in some of my older sketchbooks in a kind of self-review. I liked this one (much better in person than scanned). The body is much better than the head, which looks stiff and cartoon-like. The line work needed to be more delicate and nuanced even though I was not attempting to do a more realistic drawing. What I love about drawing is the way the graphite spreads across the paper’s surface with little markings that show the surface texture allowing it to take advantage of that surface along with the subject of the drawing integrating them together in some way. It’s a play on surface texture, line, form, and mark making that can be both subtle and dramatic at the same time. That has been one of my major goals in drawing which I have achieved at times.
I’ll be the first person to admit my drawing faults but I’ll also be the first to love what I do even if nobody else gives two-cents about it.