Pencil sketches of East African animals – back to the drawing board

After recently leaving my teaching post in Dar Es Salaam to move to Nairobi for my husband’s new job, I now find myself ‘in between jobs’ and consequently at a rather interesting crossroads in my life.

The million dollar question, well, million shilling question is this: Do I continue with teaching Art and English or do try to make a living out of my art?

I enjoy teaching, I can always find work and it brings in regular money, but it doesn’t satisfy me creatively. I love doing painting, photography and textiles, and have generated a lot of interest in my art over the last few years, but it is a huge risk financially trying to ‘be’ an artist. To be honest I don’t even think I know what ‘being an artist’ actually means let alone know how I would go about being one and/ or how I would go about making a living being one.

What I do know, however, as both a teacher and a student of art, is that the best way to improve your art skills is to regularly practise different techniques. I am aware of the fact that procrastination is the enemy of both time and success.

So bearing that in mind, for the time being, while I update my CV and put feelers out into the Nairobi Art scene, I have been polishing up my art skills.

I have decided to go back to the drawing board and focus on my basic shading skills. Everyday, over the last few days, I have done a sketch of an animal from my Tanzanian photographs.

Here are my first few sketches…