Of Portrait Drawings…

I like drawing portraits. I’m never good at portrait drawing though (or most art drawing for that matter, but that doesn’t stop me from loving to draw all the same). In fact, during Cedar times, i’d run to the library in my free afternoon time with a HUGE book on portrait drawing that no one ever seemed to borrow and sit in the reading corner with my sketch book, self-absorbed in drawing. I think i can copy or reproduce certain things/ drawings pretty okay, but not drawing purely by myself. Unlike the professional artists who do it by the street-side, the shortest timing i have used to produce a drawing is…… 5 hours. Hahahaha. Yes, it is about 10x the timing required by the professional artist and most times, i have to do many many before i can produce one of which i’m satisfied with.

Throughout the years, i’ve been drawing non-stop – in fact, anyone whom i’ve been close to or had acquaintance with would most likely have been a subject of my pencil at some point in time. However, i’ve throwing away most of them, because i either felt that i did not put in enough effort in the drawing or i thought most were horrid. =p Thus far, there are only 3 portraits that i’m satisfied with, of which, i cannot remember if i still have the first one after shifting; while the second was given to the subject of the drawing, and the third one is in my possession right now.

The first one that i was satisfied with was one of my teacher. The funniest thing was, i started out NOT wanting to draw her. But in the end, i gave up fighting against my mind and drew her. I have no idea why, most probably because i was seeing her most of the time. I think she never found out why my friend was always laughing when comparing a sketchbook to her. That portrait took me a whole afternoon to complete. The second one was actually of Ning. I don’t know if she kept it… But i remembered that was the portrait that took me the longest of time to complete. I was never quite satisfied with it, and so worked on it on and off for more than a month. I don’t even know why i gave it to her. Ha. And the third one is a recent work – one of J C. =p I have never drawn J C (for some reason), but the other day i was looking at some pictures and decided to give it a try. LOL. The portrait took me 5 hours and i think i only managed to achieve 60% likeness.

Come to think of it, until now, i still don’t know why i chose Triple Science over Arts in secondary school. Art is way more part of me, even though my mum has always been cultivating the ’science’ kid by giving us so much science kits in my young days. Do i regret? In a sense, no, because i’ve been still doing these what other people dub as ‘crazy things’ like drawing. In fact, i thought once that most probably, not choosing that path means that i never lose that interest in Arts, though i think more likely than not, that is nothing but just an excuse to console myself with. (This thought particularly sprung forth after reading The Alchemist)

Nothing is an accident.

I guess, the watch will not understand his watchmaker. It may not understand, but every part of the watch exists for a reason. What i chose determined what i am now. And there’s no going back, only looking forward.