“Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.”
―Pablo Picasso

About a week ago I had the sudden urge to draw the likeness of a very special woman. I sat down at my desk, brought up some photos of her on the computer, grabbed a pencil and started sketching.

I failed, miserably.

A few days ago, as I was heading home late on Saturday evening, the same urge returned, even more powerful – and this time I knew exactly what I had to do. I went home, took out my sketching crayons (which had been laying unused for nigh on a decade) and an A4 size paper, opened the photos again and picked one. Four hours of drawing and smudging and erasing later I stopped, looked down at my paper and saw this:

My first ever real attempt at a portrait, fueled entirely by the inspiration she gave me. In my opinion it doesn’t quite capture her as strongly as I wanted to, but it’s close.

I was thrilled and full of wonder – I posted the image to facebook, tagging the lovely lady in question, and received instant praise. Over the next few days I expected my eyes to start finding faults and grow to dislike what I had created, but it didn’t happen. So, today I decided to try again. With myself as the model.

Fully expecting to fail horribly, after 3 hours or so I decided to stop destroying what I had made and I held up the drawing.

I think I can actually do this now…