This quick sketch of an impressionist painting is a reminder to me of how we cannot see anything until we are taught to see it. I was enjoying the painting because of the way Tarbell captured light, when a man and his wife joined me. The man said to his wife: "This is a wonderful painting, but I wonder whose lap the baby is on.". I was shocked because I was not able to see the baby till he mentioned that there was one. I noticed that it was indeed difficult to tell whose lap it was on. It was a transformative and humbling experience.
A quick sketch filled in later with charcoal and ebony pencil. "The sweetness and delights of the resting-place are in proportion to the pain endured on the Journey. Only when you suffer the pangs and tribulations of exile will you truly enjoy your homecoming." -Rumi
Quick sketches for the processing of incomplete thoughts. Everything is created twice, first in thought, second in form. I am still thinking and still forming and still being formed.
An exercise in observation - quick sketch. I was told that if I made a drawing a day for 365 days, that in a year, I might have a couple nice drawings.
Imperfect Lines, Honest Presence
This sketch is not perfect—and that’s exactly why it’s alive. The bold figure, the dissolving hat, the tilted chair: all of it feels unfinished, fleeting, caught in motion. It’s what the Japanese call wabi-sabi—finding beauty in the imperfect, the impermanent, the incomplete.
But there’s something deeper here too. A quick sketch is not just what the eye records. It’s what the soul permits. To draw without fixing, without polishing, is to admit the world will not hold still for us. Life slips past. The lines break off. And yet, somehow, the essence remains.
When you sketch this way, you are not the master of the moment—you are its guest. The pencil does not carve permanence; it pays attention. The act of drawing becomes an act of being present, of honoring what is already vanishing.
So here’s a challenge: grab a pencil and sketch someone near you in sixty seconds. Do not erase. Do not perfect. Let the lines falter. When you finish, ask yourself: What truth did the imperfection reveal?
Perhaps presence itself is the real art.
I always tell students to start a project with quick sketches to develop a shape language. Plus research, then you can start to generate ideas. This is one of who knows how many small sketches I'll do to start this project. #ideation #designsketches #pilo
'Good Morning' quick sketch from my sketchbook showing my morning chicory / barley coffee with new morning #quaratine routine. A stared series of quick everyday sketches about mixing everyday food with the ideas of cosmos and universe.
Not sure which direction it will go, but the main purpose of it is to draw and draw more especially after sucha long break in drawing....!
Threw together this pattern study last week. Been using Posca pens since December and I'm loving how quickly they dry. I can throw together quick sketches without having to worry too much about smearing the ink as I move along.
Made with pen, ink pencil and gel pen. Started off as a quick sketch to loosen the cobwebs but turned into a piece that I dived into and developed more of my own style.
In an attempt to be much more consistent with my drawing practice (and to tackle my insecurities about showing people my drawings) I am hoping that posting some of my sketches online will help keep me accountable. So day 1 sketch, I managed to find a very cheap used college set of Rotring Rapidograph pens online, when they arrived today I was delighted to see that they had NEVER been used! After a bit of a happy dance I got a couple of the pens assembled and started to figure out how they work. This is a quick sketch on tracing paper not that I was tracing anything I just need to invest in better paper with less tooth to be able to use these pens without having ink flow issues.
