I was on social media a few months ago and came across a well-known artist who does pencil and painted portraits of strangers while conducting an interview.

If you’ve followed my art over the years, you know that I’ve had a tendency to shy away from drawing, painting, and illustrating faces. It has been such a struggle for me for years because I’m not crazy about hyper-realistic art, but I also felt like it was something that I needed to be good at if I wanted to call myself an artist. That’s not at all true, and there are many ways to be an artist, but that self-imposed pressure persisted and I made a point to not include any faces in my drawings for years.

When I saw that artist’s social media page, he made it look so easy, so I just watched one after the other and broke down his technique in my mind.

Then, one day, I decided to give it a shot and apply what I’d learned by watching his videos.

The images below are the first permanent pieces that I made (after playing a bit in my sketchbook first).

Because I could go back and erase if I needed to, I felt more and more confident over time, and decided to create a series of pieces with figures that are drawn using pencil.

It’s such a simple thing, but I think we see all of these fun and fancy art supplies online (that many of us artists end up “saving for something special”) and I find that I’m the most comfortable using really simple supplies that remind me of my childhood.