Confessions of a researchaholic

I drew over a previous cat photo to experiment with abstraction. The reflection seems to work well based on only the natural shape distortion (over a car hood).

Without a magnifying glass I might have missed some important details.

This guy took off at Palo Alto station so I drew him mostly from visual memory.

I went home vector drawing over a photo.

I did not feel particularly inspired on this day.

My brain was preoccupied by a research issue and had limited bandwidth to spot drawing subjects on the evening train, until a homeless guy boarded at the California Avenue station. Like many other homeless folks, this guy also has very unique characteristics. He moved around a lot inside the train and disembarked in the next stop (Palo Alto station) so I could only quickly sketch him from memory, followed by vector draw at home later in the night.

Drawing vector graphics from scratch can be difficult, so I was recommended to first sketch and import as a reference for vector drawing.
The two posts below show the process in Adobe (raster) Sketch and (vector) Draw.

Vector drawing is quite a different experience from raster sketching: precise and concise versus loose and exploratory (based on my personal experience so far).
I wonder if tracing vector contours over a photo can be an alternative beginner exercise, to focus on sourcing and abstraction before contour, space, proportion, and perspective.

I saw this funky bag of plant remains (looks like tree leaves and branches) on my way to work and quickly drew it before being moved away by the park cleaner.

After looking at the photos later, I realized that ground shadow is an important visual cue to add.