I never drew before. I could sketch something but without adding shades or volume, because I did not want to show any pretension on my ability to draw. Just like you, I sketched my teachers at school and just like you, I was thrown out of the class. Perhaps, my teachers used to take more care of my caricatures. When I was in boarding school, I chose "drawing" as manual activity course. But on the first term, I even forgot why, my drawing teacher slapped my face. I was so angry, that I stopped drawing and start "cabinet making".
A disaster !
When I started to paint in 1996, I used to sketch very lightly my subjects with my graphite pencil. It was with my painting brush and colors, that I detailed my portraits. One day, my wife explained me that "HB" engraved on my pencil was not a trade-mark, but was a graduation on a scale, and to prove that, she came back home the next day with 8 or 10 pencils from the 5H to the 5B. When you try to draw with each different pencil, their difference is evident. The 5H draws a very light grey and the 5B a very deep black. This discovery was so interesting for me, that I decided to try a graphite portrait at once.

At that time, I was painting on commission the portrait of this very elegant lady, who is now one of my very best friend. I decided to experiment my new pencils in a graphite portrait of her. It was in october 97. Be indulgent, this is my first scribble. The shaddows are too strong, her light wrinkles are too deep. But Christine forgave me to draw her older than in realty.
I remind a client coming at home to give me a commission for her pet dog portrait and eventually hers. When she saw this portrait, she exclaimed : "I can see that you are the wrinkles 's specialist !"
She never gave me a commission for a portrait of her... I still wonder why ?

Nevertheless, this pretty scrible allowed me to get a lot of portraits on commission, many children but also dogs, of course. Let me show you my first graphite portrait of a dog