Sketching Progress

Because my writing time is limited this morning, let me post about my sketching progress.  Back in January, I made three intentions.  One of them was this:  "I have lots of ways to improve my ability to sketch a lifelike human, but I want to concentrate on faces (both from the front and profile) and hands, and not in isolation, but as part of the figures that I draw."

I'm still not great at drawing humans out of my imagination, but I've practiced by sketching humans that appear in catalogs.  Here's what I did back in January:

Here's a close up of my sketch, done with a .3 tip black pen.

Here's the original:

And here's what I did last night.  I spent roughly the same amount of time on each sketch, the January one and last night's:

Last night I used colored pens.

I'm using pens with a .5 tip (black and red) and a .1 tip (brown and burgundy).  Here's the original:

I'm pleased with my efforts.  What pleases me even more is that I reached for a sketchbook last night, as I brought my busy day to a close.