Inspired by a really great Youtube channel today I sat down for a long term portrait drawing from a New Masters Academy photograph.
I continue to find that YouTube is a huge influence in my motivation. If I’m ever lacking in motivation for anything I just watch a video of someone else doing said thing and I instantly become motivated.
I especially love this Youtube channel because the artists doesn’t speed up most of his videos and most of them are hours long. As a fellow artists I want to see every stroke of the brush or pencil and I wish other channels would slow it down also.
I need to know that a good drawing takes much longer than I thought. I need to understand that most of the paintings in museums took days, months or years to complete and in most cases were the last of many consecutive attempts. The information age is wonderful if you want to learn anything about everything. But, unfortunately most of it is commercialized, distilled, edited and chopped into something completely different all in the name of sales, clicks or views. No wonder most people can’t believe what they see or read on the internet, we edited the truth out to support our deficit in attention.
Do me a favor, watch one of those 2 hour long drawings from beginning to end without skipping forward. Feel the time pass at a normal pace. It takes a lot of patience, but I guarantee you’ll gain a bit more respect for the time spent.

Wow! Well done Chris! I love the way you shaded each area with parallel lines. Great likeness too!
Thanks Jana! The video inspired me to work this way. Each set of lines represent a plane change and the direction I picked for each was, I hope, best describing the form in space.
PS. Thanks for the amazing YouTube link!
I second Jana’s comment- this drawing is absolutely amazing!
Although I’m not going to watch a two hour art video, I completely and whole-heartedly agree with your commentary of “sped up” demonstrations. I hate the 3 minute videos that are getting passed around on Facebook of sped up videos of people creating something amazing, but because the video is only 3 minutes long, watchers get a false sense of the level of artistry and expertise necessary to re-create the food, decoration, or project. It’s super frustrating.
I’m considering making a youtube channel for EarthFit, and that is DEFINITELY something I would address- I refuse to make sped up videos to simplify how easy my recipes or projects are.
Thanks for sharing the video and your insight.