ethnic portrait series

I just found this sketch I did over a year ago. Over the past 2 years, approximately, I've been doing portraits of people of different ethnicities. The idea was to do the drawings in a relatively short period of time (15-20 minutes) in order to exercise my life drawing skills.

Josh, 23, Mexican-American


Sanaa, 21, Moroccan


Ariana, 15, Venezuelan-American


Jarad, 21, half Italian-American


Braxton, 20, African-American


All these drawings are pretty random and controlled by the people's willingness to sit still long enough for me to get a good likeness. Not everyone who wants their portrait drawn is a good model. However it has been good practice having to capture the likeness of a person even though they're not completely stationary. Josh, for example, would not sit still for more than a few seconds. I think he has undiagnosed ADD or something, seriously. It kinds of came out in his portrait, which is kind of cool, I think. Ariana, on the other hand, sat very still, so I was able to get a lot more fine detail in her features and hair line.

While in New York this past May, I did a portrait of my friend Vieneesa as a graduation gift, in the manner of the portrait of Sanaa (on gray paper), but I don't have a copy of it because I didn't have a scanner, and it was my last night in town. Some way I need to get a copy of it, because it turned out really well.

I have a candidate for my next portrait. I don't know when it'll get done, though. Stay tuned. :)