Drawing Can Still Pass The Time

There was room at night to bring out the sketchpad and do some light drawing over the past month. If I could find a way to do more drawings in the open air that did not involve me sweating profusely I would try that but that moment has yet to come. Instead when the evening breeze moves through I open the windows up, turn on the lights, and bring out a book of Roman art to find something of a challenge.

This one was pretty high up there in the challenging departments. Here are both pictures to give you a reference of what I was trying for and what I ended up delivering. The statue can be seen in its entirety on Wikipedia. So this is the photograph from the book that I have:

The fellow does not look happy to say the least. And all that detail in the beard and hair... I thought the last portrait I did of a Roman emperor was difficult because of a few waves of hair. This one took a lot of patience and I managed to miss some proportions as well, but it was a good stress reliever in the late evening hours. This was my version of the photo:

It was fun to do. Maybe twenty or more hours of drawing time spent getting all that hair untangled in my mind's eye, and then shading on top of shading. I can really see how a drawing at a fairly large size could take a month or more to finish - but mine would still look like something was slightly off. Only slightly though, that is an improvement.