At the time of writing this, only TEN spots are left in the Faces for India Project. To grab a spot and get a portrait, visit here.

I will NOT be doing any more portraits after this. I have enjoyed doing this work to raise COVID relief in India. With the generous support of all the people who have participated in this project, we have raised over $10000 for organizations providing essential supplies to India’s vulnerable populations.

It feels like a nice number to stop at. There are many other things to which I want to give my time this summer.

I have nearly 75 portraits left to draw. I’m going to enjoy doing all of them. Here are some recent ones I have also enjoyed. :)

To see all the portraits drawn so far in this project,

Visit here

Jawn spoke with me about Faces for India on the radio, during CKNW’s The Jill Bennett Show. There was a flood of support after this day, because it was also the day my TV interview with Global BC went on air. Total collections increased by 50% in one day!

Jawn uses this for his display pic on Twitter.

I drew this portrait of Molly and Max (the cat) live on Instagram, while Molly was also part of the audience. Fun!

I’m not so good at drawing animals, so this project has worked as an excellent opportunity to improve my animal and pet-drawing skills.

I look at older people and I think about the things they have seen. I am fascinated by elderly people, as subjects of literature, since I first read the books of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Often his protagonists are elderly people looking back at their past actions.

So as I draw older people, I think about the stories they know, and the worlds they have seen. They have lived in worlds that in many ways do not exist anymore.

Some contributors have sent in pics of their parents or grandparents from younger days as well. And as I draw those portraits, I wonder at the kind of connection this creates across space and time.

I think of the life-cycle of the moment locked inside that photo - to come into being on a special day, to be seen, to be stored, to be shown, to be framed, to be boxed, to be forgotten, to be lost, to be found, to be photographed itself, to be emailed, downloaded, filtered, magnified, and put down on paper with ink by me sitting at my desk here in Vancouver, Canada in the year 2021. It is a sunny day of summer. Hello.

Another “photograph” fun to draw was #145 for Maggie. It was composed of dark shadows, sepia lighting, and stern expressions.

I made this drawing for a colleague and friend on a writing group that I am part of. In fact, several members of this group have supported me in this project. Note to self: I should write a separate post to highlight the special moments of their lives that they have shared with me.

It was a lot of fun to draw this portrait for Mahima, and I created a video of the drawing process as well. I think it’s a useful guide to how I draw faces and facial features. It also demonstrates the way I map my way across the page.

I will be using some of these videos in my People Drawing Workshop, to talk about how I draw straight with ink and capture key features with minimalist linework. The next session of this workshop is on 27th June, and you can sign up for a seat here.

Faces for India - Recent Portraits (100-150)