Sketchbook drawings + Life of Pi

Here's some recent sketchbook work.

This is Audrey. Audrey's been a good friend since I was a snotty teenager, but I've never been able to draw her accurately. Some likenesses are just naturally elusive. I was talking with Warren Linn once (Warren was one of my professors in college, and a huge influence on my philosophy and work ethic) about the pursuit of the accurate likeness - we agreed that sometimes, you just have to give in to the drawing, and let it develop independently of the need to accurately represent something. Sometimes a portrait can fail as a description, but succeed as a drawing, and that's okay. At the very least, it's a comforting excuse for when I fail to nail down a portrait.

This piece was made for my friend Alyssa's new blog project, Ten Paces and Draw, in which illustrators sketch based on a theme, and swap those sketches to let someone else finish the image. The theme this time around was "Literary Characters" and this drawing is based on a sketch by Erica Sirotich, who chose the book "Life of Pi". Check the rest of the drawings (including my Captain Ahab sketch) out here