Title: Untitled
Media: Pencil Sketch
Size: A4
Date: 10 June 2008 (I used to have a fetish for mirror images. It's written in mirror image above his head)

This piece of work was meaningful to me because it was probably the first time that I'd done something with a subject matter that I liked and that I'd pulled it off in a manner that to me was rather aesthetically pleasing. Previously I used to scorn copying images, but I began to realise that without copying I wouldn't learn how to draw properly. Only after copying either from real life or from a photograph does an artist have the technical know-how somewhere in his/her subconscious of how to render an image. So when I saw this photo illustration of a guy in street clothes on the back jacket of a book I was enjoying very much, I decided to render it in my sketchbook with the objective to learn how to render the human form realistically.

I faced challenges in the form of a torn and crumpled plastic cover (it was a Library book) which reflected off light in all angles. Also, the book-cover illustrator had darkened the regions of the image around the guy to make way for the book summary on the back. As a result I could only see the guy clearly to as far as his hands were.

After I was done with it I remember being exceedingly happy with it. I think that this was a milestone in my aesthetic development; it was after the time when I discovered that if I wanted to get somewhere in art I should transfer an image I see with my eye onto a separate piece of paper without using tracing paper or anything(or copying, as I call it). Even now I sometimes still do some copying to learn and to grow. I hope that I can continue to grow and achieve more in art.