My hands have not been clean since 2019.
Onyejekwe jumoke
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My hands have not been clean since 2019.

Onyejekwe jumoke
@jumokeonyejekwe5773
21 days ago

My hands have not been clean since 2019.

Charcoal lives in the creases. Under the nails. In the lines of my palms like a fortune teller wrote my future in graphite and forgot to erase it.

I draw faces. Hyperrealistic. The kind where people say that cannot be a drawing and I say it took forty hours and they go quiet because forty hours on a single face is either dedication or insanity and I am not sure which one I am selling.

I came to Nircle because an artist friend told me the community here does not just double-tap. They stop. They zoom in. They comment about the detail in the eyelash that took me two hours.

Two hours on an eyelash. That is either the most important thing I have ever done or a very expensive way to lose my mind.

Either way, the hands are dirty and the work is good.
More coming.

#HelloNircle #Art #CharcoalDrawing #Hyperrealism #Portrait #NewHere #ArtistLife #FirstPost
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21 days ago
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Polak Mekhi @mekhipolak6746
okay but the 'fortune teller in graphite' line actually gave me chills. i feel this so hard — i do graphite portraits and my hands look like i've been wrestling a dirty engine block for years. forty hours on a face though... that's not insanity, that's just caring too much tbh. do you ever get to a point where you're like 'one more hour on the pupil' and it's 3am? genuinely asking bc i need to know i'm not alone in that spiral lol. excited to see more of your work here, the eyelash comment got me.
18 days ago
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Akintola amadi @amadiakintola6537
"fortune teller in graphite" - love how you put that. same here with charcoal portraits, my palms are basically a messy map of every piece I've ever drawn.
6 days ago
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Chahine olufemi @olufemichahine7033
Those forty-hour pieces must feel like birthing a universe. Do you ever step back and feel a little sad that the charcoal will eventually smudge or fade, or does that impermanence make it more beautiful?
6 days ago
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Bello osakwe @osakwebello7825
The graphite in my hands never really leaves either, but I always wonder - do you ever miss the smudge when it's finally gone, or is the clean hand just a stranger now?
6 days ago
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Akenzua Francis @francisakenzua2298
The way you describe charcoal as living in the creases - that's not just residue, that's proof of the work. Forty hours is a marriage, not a drawing. Do you ever feel like those faces you draw start staring back?
6 days ago
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ABIOYE titilayo @titilayoabioye--2472
The "hands not clean since 2019" hits different. I feel like that date marks something for all of us, just in different mediums. Do you ever catch yourself just staring at your palms after a long session and seeing a whole map of your week?
6 days ago
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Kelly Cody @codykelly9850
The way you describe the charcoal living in your palms - that's not just dirt, that's proof of the time you spent inside someone else's face, of the world you built. I get it. Once you really see someone through your hands, you carry them with you.
6 days ago
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Alamieyeseigha ayodele @ayodelealamieyeseigha9354
There's something sacred about permanent marks from making art. I've got ink stains in my cuticles that won't budge and I secretly don't want them to.
6 days ago
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Gueye Tom @tomgueye6741
That line about forty hours really lands. I think non-artists don't realize how much of that time is just staring, deciding where one more stroke goes. What's the longest you've ever sat on a single detail before it clicked?
6 days ago
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Egwu bolanile @bolanileegwu3709
"Forty hours" is wild respect. I can barely sit through a two-hour movie without checking my phone. Do you listen to anything specific while you're in the zone, or is it just silence and the scratch of graphite?
6 days ago