Sleeping Subway Cyclist

Micron Pigma Ink in small Moleskine sketchbook
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

This morning on BART I saw this lovely man as soon as I got on and purposely picked a seat one row past him. I was lucky that nobody sat between us until halfway through the ride. My ride to work is only 13 minutes and he slept the whole way, only changing his left arm slightly. When people sat in the seat in front of me I had to keep scrunching around, trying look over their shoulders or in the aisle–but then my viewpoint changed so that wasn’t too helpful. The guy sitting next to me reading didn’t pay any attention to all my gyrating, nor did anyone else.

One thing I noticed about my process was that before I started drawing I sort of drew the picture mentally first, moving the pen above the paper, picturing how I’d place the image. Then I was ready to start drawing but had this rebellious moment where I decided to start with the hand that was closest to me (which doesn’t appear in the drawing because it was the only thing he moved) even though I had a feeling it was not the “right” place to start. It worked out ok anyway. I just kept my pen moving and the ride was over before I had time to overwork it. I considered adding some colored pencil when I got home, but decided to just leave it alone.