Portrait of Jill with Colored Pencils

I did this portrait of Jill with colored pencils and ink pen at the first meeting of our artist group. I set up a still-life for the group to sketch, but then I asked the group if it was OK if I drew one of the members. Jill said it was fine, and she also approved my posting this particular drawing on my blog. I did two others, but I felt this one looked more like her, although maybe a Jill Caporlingua who is twenty years younger. I left the spiral on the left of my sketchbook in the reproduction for the web to give the viewer the idea that this is a sketch and not a finished portrait.

I did the pen part of this drawing without looking at the paper; I just stared at Jill’s head and let my hand do the work on the paper. This is called “contour drawing.” It is a great way to learn how to draw.

In case any of you would like a drawing exercise, here’s one for our next artist group meeting:
Draw (or paint) an everyday object. It can be depicted as realistically or as abstractly as the individual desires.
Suggestions: scissors, salt shaker, pillow, curtains, stapler, fork

I did a few sketches and then I did a painting of a salt shaker. I looked in Google Images – lots of other artists have also drawn salt shakers as a subject.