Touch the Money

I joined an on-line sketching group called "Everyday Matters." They have a weekly challenge to draw ordinary objects around the house. Since I'm such a hermit I thought that would be right up my alley.

This week's challenge was to draw paper money. The moderator said it would be interesting to see all the different kinds of money from around the world. Hubby has a small collection of international coins and paper money so I got him to dig it out. I picked a dozen of the prettiest and most interesting bills and laid them out to start the sketch.

My brain apparently was a bit Type-A with this challenge and decided a quick sketch wasn't going to be good enough. It turned out to be a full-blown art project.

I seriously underestimated the time it would take to draw 12 monies. I could only get about two done per day before my eyeballs exploded. I have a whole new appreciation for counterfeiters.

More than once I thought I would just give up and call it done. I pulled a Herculean drawing session last night and finally finished. I'll get to that in a minute but first I want to tell you a story.

I'm still a little kid at heart and when I draw I crave instant gratification of praise and encouragement. When I finish a drawing I squeal at Hubby, "Wanna see?" He, of course, has the patience of Job so he always say yes.

After each bill was finished I would trot over with the sketchbook and lay the real dollar next to the drawing for comparison. He would coo appropriately and pat me on the fanny and say, "Very nice" because, ya know, he has the patience of Job and knows with appropriate pacification I'll cook him dinner.

So, I finish the third bill in the series (the red and yellow Philippines one) and trot it over to him.


Instead of the usually nonchalant, "Very nice", he sits up, puts on his glasses, intently studies the drawing for a minute, then runs his finger across it.

"Why did you touch it like that???"

"I thought you had glued a color photocopy to the page and I was feeling for the edge."

Wheeeee! That's some high praise there. If someone thinks you faked it, you're doing a good job. It made my day. He got chicken fried steak for dinner that night.

Here is the finished drawing with all its warts and glory. (Click to embiggen)



Some of my favorite bits are these two portraits. They are the size of a thumbprint to give you some idea of the scale. This is some eyeball-killin' work with a ballpoint pen, lemme tell ya what.





And I really liked how this temple came out. It's about the size of a thumbprint too.



For the next EDM drawing challenge I don't think I will be so ambitious. My old eyeballs just can't take it.