I’ve always liked art, but when it came time in school to choose music or visual art for electives, I went with chorus.  So, I’ve never had much training in drawing, painting, etc. However, I take pleasure in creating visual art, and a couple of years ago I realized that I really enjoy drawing with pencil.  It’s incredibly relaxing to watch a picture come alive in front of my eyes on the page as I draw, smudge, shade, and erase.  Here are some pencil drawings by my untrained hand.

“Self Portrait”:  This is the first picture I drew, and I did it with a regular mechanical pencil.  My sister made fun of the proportions of my facial features (i.e. big eyes that I don’t have), and she was definitely right.  However, this was enough to make me go out and buy some real drawing pencils and a sketchbook.

“Droma”:  This is one of my favorites.  It is a drawing of a Tibetan lady I met during my summer in western China.  She lived in a village in the mountains that we traveled to by horseback.  I will never forget her, and I still continue to pray for her.

“Misty”:  A drawing of our beautiful Maine Coon cat, Misty.

“A Vaseful”:  I drew this looking at some flowers on my desk after school one day.

“Emi”:  This is another one of my favorites.  Emi was only about 7 or 8 weeks old in this picture, and I thought she made a perfect subject!

“Child Nomad”:  This is a Tibetan nomad child whom we met as we crossed the foothills of the Himalayas to get to our summer destination.  I haven’t mastered children’s faces yet…I guess it’s harder to capture the essence of a child.

“Reclining”:  I love to sit back and relax in my recliner.  Here’s what I see.