Portrait drawing by PL Weiner

Art is My Life

I have always been interested in faces, no idea why. Sometimes, when I am speaking to someone, I find myself drawing their face in space with my index finger.

One day, out of the blue, I decided to start walking through my neighborhood, stopping people that I thought looked “interesting” and asking them if I could take their photo. I collected about 75 shots of people that lived here in my Chicago neighborhood.

Over the following year, I drew about 50 or so portraits, using graphite pencils. Looking back, I wouldn’t show these to anyone today, although I learned a lot about technique. I picked up some excellent hints from the Drawing Academy site (along with some YouTube videos) and have been continuing my journey.

Currently, I am figure drawing from life, working on improving my drawing skills.

Whenever I pick up my pencil and/or charcoal I am challenged and inspired by the human body, all the time thinking about the great artists throughout history and their own journeys. In addition, I have been reading and watching videos on art history; fascinating stuff.

I addition, for the past months, I have been going to the Drawing Academy web-site, reading their articles and looking at their students work; I always learn something.

For me, its not about winning the Drawing Academy course, (although that would be cool) its all about improving my drawing skills, so I can express my emotions through art.