"Facebook Portraits" 2-121, Taylor B.

Here is the second piece for Facebook Portraits. The random number that was given to me was #121, and according to my Facebook friends list, it was Taylor.

Now I consider myself a pretty confident person, but I sometimes I still get nervous doing certain things. One of those is drawing another artist. Since artists and creative types know what to look for when they are looking at something, I set a higher level of expectation from the work I present them.

Taylor is one of those. She's an art and design student. She's creative. And she also happens to be related to one of my mentors... my boss. Talk about pressure. =) So when I learned it was her, I admit, I kinda freaked out a bit, but I sucked it up and got started.

I thought her current profile photo was perfect. So I didn't have to look far into her albums to find one interesting enough. I turned it to black and white just to make it easier to see the shadows and light.

She's the one on the left.

I am trying to make a point to start on a portrait on a Monday. For this one, I couldn't wait. Ok. To be honest, I was bored. So I got started the Thursday after I finished the portrait of David D.

This one took me 12 hours total. I do get distracted, and since I don't have an actual place to be able to draw properly, I have to take many breaks because my right leg always falls asleep from sitting in an awkward position while drawing on my bed.

18" x 24", graphite and charcoal on paper. Taylor B 2-121.

It's not perfect by any means, but I'm working on getting better. I see some nuances on the portrait that I could have done better. Sometimes I see these things after I take my eyes off of it after a while.

I'm also working on getting faster. At the rate I'm going, the last portrait of the year might take 60 hours. lol

This was a lot of fun to draw. It's on its way to Taylor as I write this. Can't wait for her to post a photo with it. On to next week's portrait.