Drawing on a train

Hello everyone, firstly I want to thank you all for the warm reception few days ago, I posted my introduction post few days ago, and the amount of love I received from you Hiveans was out of this world. Now I know why my friend has been hooked to this platform as you all are wonderful, beautiful souls everywhere and I am so proud to be a part of the Hive family.

Today I share with you all my sketch of a colleague, Kishore on our way to Napoli. He is originally from the Southern part of India but we study together in Cassino, located in the central region of Italy, a few hours away from Rome, the capital.
We boarded the train, it was a long ride from where we stay in Cassino to Napoli which is located in the southern part of Italy and about two to three hours train ride. Since I was with my sketchbook I decided to make some sketches to pass the time.

At first we started by having random conversations, while talking he told me so much about his country and I later discovered so many things about him that I never knew. Since he was also an engineering student like me we didn’t run out what to talk about.. After about thirty minutes into the trip, I stared around for a few minutes pondering about what to draw, and it seemed my thoughts were so loud that he asked jokingly "why not draw me?".. We both laughed and it seemed like a good idea so I decided to do something to make someone smile.

This portrait was done with 4B and 2H pencils on a sketchpad. We use different pencil grades to add texture, tone or depth and my favourite pencils to use are 4H or 2H pencils for very light shades, 2B for medium shades, and 4B, 6B, 8B or charcoal pencils for very dark tones. I used the shading and blending technique to create this drawing. A couple of highlights were also added using a mono eraser, which is a special eraser encased in a pencil-like container used to add or remove micro details.
Below are the steps I underwent to achieve this piece:

I started by creating a rough outline to estimate the proportions of the facial features

I went on to make an outline of the neck, shirt and jacket. I also added some depth by using darker tones with the 4B pencil.

Then seeing I had gotten the perfect sketch I went ahead to add some shades to depict the hair strands.

Putting final touches to the drawing and watching him anticipate his portrait was interesting because he had mentioned earlier that he had never had his portrait taken.

And Tada!! His portrait was ready. I handed it over to him and the look in his eyes was priceless, I saw someone who was genuinely happy and I was glad to be part of his happiness.

He couldn’t stop staring at the portrait until we got to Napoli, I loved what had happened and I thought about drawing random people for fun, imagine making people smile genuinely every now and then after making portraits of them.

Thanks for reading.
_{All images are mine except otherwise stated}