Tobias Olney

Hello fans! I'm on a portrait sketching kick. 

Since 2019, I've been sketching people- mostly random people at restaurants, on airplanes, in cafés- in a free portrait project. My objective: spread joy through art. In a world where anyone can snap a high resolution photo with their phone in a second, to get a hand-drawn sketch that actually looks like you, from an artist who took the time to really see you, maybe even evoke your mood and play with the light on your face in graphite and charcoal, well I think that's something special. It typically takes me 1-2 hours for a quick sketch- a day or so for more detailed portraits. In 5 years, I've done over 500 free portraits all over the world. 

I do paid commissions as well, to keep the lights on and the pencils not too short, but if I catch you in the wild, I might just ask if I can take a photo of you to sketch, for free.

Recent work