On Sketching

I got into sketching sometime last year when my brother needed some help with a school project. I remember my first attempt at a self-portrait. It was interesting to see oneself as a creation of shades and lines and to realise more acutely that you cast shadows. It was in rendering a two-dimensional image of myself that I became more cognizant of myself as a three dimensional figure, a series of bumps and surfaces.

I have been practicing my sketching with the help of a book of portraits by the National Geographic photographer who shot the famous picture of an Afghani girl with mesmerising eyes. I have also found that I cannot draw happy, smiling people. I wonder if it is because drawing, like writing, is such an internal exercise... I cannot seem to find a connection with such a positive, fleeting emotion yet.