A long but sweet story behind this my very first attempt to sketch a portrait.

Last September I did an acrylic painting of a newborn and when I posted that on social media then mom of this cute baby ‘Duggu’ (who’s portrait I sketched here) approached me for a commisioned work for his newborn. That was not a good time for me to commit anything as I was already overloaded with prescheduled art exhibitions. Later, after coming to know that Duggu’s first birthday is coming up in next month (October, 2016) I thought of sketching  a portrait  of him and gift it to the family along with his 1st birthday gift.

The challenges in front of me were that I was not good in sketches that time and Duggu was too young to have prominent features on his face. Still I thought of giving it a try.

When I was almost done with Duggu’s sketch in a sketch book, my little son asked me to try his hand on my sketch book while I was going away from that room. I allowed him, but forgot to mention to use a different paper (and not the back side of Duggu’s sketch). Opps!!! Already I was running out of time. Finally, I managed to have some time just the night before Duggu’s 1st birthday Party and I sketched him again starting from the beginning. I kept the original with me and gifted a copy with thought that I will improve the sketch and will make it ready with all final touches. This time I kept it somewhere safe.

Recently, we moved to new city and for that I had to pack up my studio nearly two months ago. In past two months I was not able to paint anything and I was utilizing that time to improve my sketching skill. At one point it came to my mind to work on Duggu’s sketch, but I wasn’t able to find it anywhere.

Yesterday, as I started unpacking and setting up my studio in my new house I found this sketch. I know this is not my best work but still I am very happy to share this picture and the story. Hope next time if I make his portrait I will do it better.