That ah-ha moment

I can't say that I'm not proud of my attempt at sketching people on the bus! I needed to get out of the house to sketch and since I don't have a car right now, I took the SamTrans to Downtown San Mateo. It's a shame no one rides the bus. You don't have to drive, it's air conditioned, and you can nap (as I sketch you of course). But it being 20 minutes late PLUS it took 30 more minutes than how long it would take for a car to get there, I understand why many choose cars over buses. Anyways it's all for fun. 

The bus was nice and empty so I took a seat in the middle and sketched the passengers in front of me. Few things I learned as I stated in that sketch: sketch what you see, eyes to pen, make it quick, add details after. While I studied in Italy, my professor for life drawing/sketching told us to draw what you see, not what you think you see. 'Keep your eye on the subject. Once that eye leaves the subject you start to imagine things that's really not there and soon your drawing looks nothing like the subject. ' That's exactly what I did and this is what I got. 

Then I got to Peet's coffee to work on my cover letter and once I needed a break, sketched a few people there. This grandpa impressed me with his laptop. 

So the first two sketches were in this dark grey fine pen that I bought yesterday. Maybe I gravitate more towards the grey pen because it doesn't look so permanent as the black... This time I tried using a thick black pen (.6) to really penetrate the paper with. 

So after I finished my sketches, I was comparing them and I really liked the work that had less lines in. The grandpa sketch has more strokes and the other two don't. The lines were more concrete and defined, while the grandpa one seemed like I was unsure. I remember another professor of mine looking at my sketches from before telling me I need less lines to produce my sketch. Got it.