Today’s Sketchbook Month submission is a warm-up sketch, loosely based on an old snapshot I took of myself a few years ago using one of the facial distortion modes in iChat.

I also thought it would be fun to try do draw something on toned paper. The idea is to let the color of the paper represent the middle tones of the drawing, leaving the artist to shade in only the very dark and very light areas. Some artists get terrific results with this method. Personally I have a hard time “letting go” and allowing the toned paper to work for me. My tendency is still to over-render everything myself instead of letting the background tone do its job.

That’s the whole point of a sketchbook, isn’t it? To keep practicing and improving so as to strengthen areas where I tend to be a little weak.