Charcoal Drawing from College

Charcoal figure by Megan Coyle

This is a charcoal drawing that I did back in college, when we were studying the figure. In college I really enjoyed making figurative artwork, especially portraits. People really fascinated me, as well as the broad range of emotion that can be conveyed in different facial expressions. I also liked how every person has something about them that makes them their own character.

Anyway, this drawing really does show off that I was way more interested in drawing the sitter than capturing the environment he was in. I remember my professor critiqued me on not putting as much effort into his surroundings. What can I say? People are more interesting to me than a classroom full of empty chairs.

Another Self Portrait Drawing from College

The other day, I mentioned that I was going through old sketchbooks. This is actually another one of the drawings I came across – it’s a self portrait that I made with color pencil.

I’m realizing I really need to revisit other mediums and play around with them. These older drawings of mine are inspiring me to start changing things up a bit. As much as I enjoy making collages, I’m gearing up to start having my variety in my artistic life.

Self Portrait Drawing from College

The other day I was going through old sketchbooks that were in my closet, trying to figure out what to get rid of. Most of the pages were full of notes, jotted down back when I was in college. However, on some pages I found a few drawings, so I removed the pages that had drawings and threw out the rest of those books.

This is one of the drawings I came across – it’s actually a self portrait. Self portraits have always been a bit of a struggle for me – it’s really difficult to depict yourself. So whenever someone says one of my self portraits doesn’t look like me, I like to say it isn’t supposed to. It just represents a version of me.