Charcoal portrait

Contemplating 6x8 charcoal, copyright 2012

Every artist should draw or sketch every day.  It's like exercising or doing your homework, a necessity to keep up your skills.  I know this, and while I have good intentions, it often doesn't happen.  Life gets in the way, as it tends to do.  But really, that's just an excuse, one that I need to quit using.  

Over the weekend, Black Friday in fact, I stopped in one of the few remaining art supply stores around to look for some of my favorite pastel paper.  They didn't have any so I picked of a pad of gray tone papers, thinking it would be good for sketching.  Today I decided to quit using excuses and use this paper instead.  I flipped through my reference photos and found this one.  Hands and faces and the two parts of the body that I have the most difficulty with so of course I had to put both in the same sketch.  Obviously I still need a bit of practice, but it's not too bad for a half hour of work.  Now I just have to convince myself to keep sketching every day.