Time-Tested: 55

Just when you thought it was safe, here we go again! Another whirl of wittering as I hop over to Reddit Gets Drawn and insult the handsome volunteers of the site with time-tested (and sometimes patience-testing) drawings. This week, I was granted 55 minutes for such a pleasure.

With a powerful expression, striking facial features and wicked goatee, this photograph was hard to pass over. Mindful of trying to capture said features, I found myself spending longer on the outlines than I would normally have with a time limit so relatively short as this; the eyes took a particularly long time to get to the level you see. Consequently, these blunders impacted the time I had available for shading (I got to the shirt with about a minute left, so didn’t have time to complete it) so it didn’t turn out perhaps as well as I’d have liked – I think the dip in confidence is visible, compared to some of my other similar efforts. I think it’s a similar story to my 60 minute piece, which would make sense given the mere five-minute difference; happy likeness, not so ecstatic shading… but it was a fun exercise.

Be sure to give the comment thread a gander, as there are some particular beauties in there, far superior to this.

It’s getting close to Christmas, so I’m not sure if I’ll have time to do one of these next week. We’ll have to see! There’s suspenders for you.

• 55 minute
• Art
• drawing
• goatee
• male
• portrait
• sketch
• Time-Tested
• timed