Sketchbook Pages: Portraits and Faces

Hi all,

For a long time, I aspired to be a portrait artist. However, you won't find many portraits in my sketchbooks because I struggle to capture a likeness in acrylic ink, my medium of choice for journaling. For years, I only included people in my sketchbooks as graphite vignettes. Eventually, I started experimenting with ink, but those renderings still feel a bit cartoonish. While I'm no longer afraid to render faces in ink, I still feel more comfortable using a medium that allows time for shading, adjustments, and precision, such as charcoal or oil paint.

At the end of this collection, I've included a charcoal drawing for comparison.

2008 (Barcelona, Spain)

2010

2013 (Mustafa Ataturk in Istanbul, Turkey)

2016 (Rippe, a friend in Korpo Island, Finland)

2020 (A bronze sculpture of Evert Taube in Stockholm, Sweden)

Chalk and charcoal portrait of Bruce Kariuki on paper toned with acrylic ink.