Left: Sketch of an old man across from me in a waiting room. Staedtler Pigment Liner pen in a journal I made with Nideggen paper. (Page approx. 6 x 9 inches.) Click on the image to view an enlargement.
One of the advantages of always carrying your journal with you is that you can always take a moment to sketch—especially if you are in a waiting room with other people (or objects—sometimes it's fun to sketch furniture!).
Typically no one notices when I sketch, but on this day I think the man's wife who was sitting at right angles to him on my right, noticed. Just when I finished capturing most of this she got him up and took him out into the hall and left him there, to wait for their transportation. I could see him through the windows which line the hall at the entrance to the waiting room. She came back into the room to continue working on her crossword puzzle.
I kept working for about another minute on my drawing, fussing, making certain lines stronger, darkening some of the shading. There wasn't any point in getting my watercolors out because he was gone—and my ten minutes of sketching were over because I was called out of the waiting room.
It's great practice to try to get something down on paper quickly—it doesn't always have to be a bird.
Go have your own personal sketch out today, wherever your day takes you.
