...sketch small.  I have a policy of never complaining about rain here, mostly because I like weather but also because we need it so badly.  But it did cause me to think, to refigure, since I couldn't work outside on my big drawing.  So inside I go.  It's one thing to "drawundercover" on big paper outside at Peet's where there's enough space to be anonymous, but inside it was out of the question.  I actually drew this one second but I put it first because it is my favorite, possibly my best portrait so far.

This man was sitting so close and was concentrating so hard and never once looked up to possibly see me.  As I was finishing, I had an almost overwhelming desire to show it to him.  This happens almost never.  I felt that he had been so nice to sit so still for me (for me?) for so long that I wanted to thank him.  I felt we had developed a relationship.  But, something kept me from doing it.  If anyone out there is reading this, tell me, would you like it if someone came up to you and told you they had just made a picture of you and would you like to see it?  What would you say?  Maybe he would get angry, maybe he would be embarrassed, maybe my asking would break some unspoken agreement between us.  I think this last concern was the main reason I didn't ultimately talk to him.  By sketching people I feel almost that I have made an agreement of privacy with them, that I would keep their privacy by not bothering them.  This was the first time I almost asked the narrator what they thought.  But there was no narrator but me, and so the man packed his computer and left.  I watched him go out the door, almost went after him with my sketchbook to say "Look what I just made!", but ultimately let it go.

This was not the first sketch I made, but the only other one I wanted to put here.  I decided to experiment with drawing the rectangle first.  I used to do this a long time ago with all my drawings and I think it's useful.  It gives a sense of the space one is drawing in, it's shape and it's boundaries.  One can cross over them, at the same time being conscious of them.  Like the little line that crosses into the space at the bottom, which causes the eye to linger there just a little longer.