I've been drawing since I was three or four and everyone who sees my work says I have a gift. When I was a kid I would draw scenes of nature, trees, houses, and toys. I would also create my own heroes and villains, draw them out, and make stories revolving around these characters. I was good at creating things with my imagination and producing realistic drawings. I was really into horror films as a child and some of the stuff I would create and draw probably scared my teachers and parents half to death, but that was a relatively short phase in my life. Right about the time I was a teenager I started excelling at drawing portraits of people and made some money doing them for people. To this day I draw with graphite(charcoal frustrates me) and draw portraits of people for other people. I like drawing my kids from time to time. Currently, I'm drawing a picture of a couple for a friend of mine. She wants to give it to them as a gift.
Anyways, now to my drawing process. When I draw, I start by drawing a light sketch of the head. I then try to sketch one of the eyes. I then check the width of the head to see how many eyes are needed to fill the width of the head. Once that ratio is set, I draw the other eye, which is usually one eye width away from the eye I sketched out. I then use various ratios to draw the nose, mouth, and then the rest of the head. For instance, once the eyes are drawn, I'll look at the picture I'm drawing from and notice the the length of the nose may roughly be the distance between certain features of the eyes. So I measure those points on my drawing and then proceed to draw the nose to that length. Then, after the face is mapped out I begin to draw darker edges where there are shaded areas to better define the face. The next step is the shading, which I build up in layers until I create the depth I desire. I have various blending tools and pencils to accomplish this. I usually draw the hair last.
Now this may seem silly to anyone reading this, but I don't like drawing, at least not anymore. When I was younger I used to derive great pleasure from being able to draw well and to create concepts out of thin air. I only work in graphite probably because working with color frustrates me to no end. It takes an exorbitant amount of time to bring a realistic drawing of people to completion and the attention to detail required is excruciating for me. But the main reason is that art in and of itself is not fulfilling to me. I seem to enjoy art created by others very much, but I don't often enjoy creating it like I did when I was much younger. Mostly thought, art has only been one small facet of my many varied interests and not a focal point of my life I've always been more scientifically oriented and it would be safe to say that most of my life I have been concerned other interests, such as the origin of the universe, astronomy, the existence of God, the biological sciences, chemistry, physics, evolution. I majored in Biology in college(switched to studio art for a semester) and was primarily interested in scientific studies up until my junior year in college, where I developed an interest in the humanities, politics, sociology, philosophy, history, and comparative religion. I've noticed that my approach to art has had more of an intellectual bent as opposed to the more emotional, create in the moment type of art. I'm very methodical with my artistic processes.
I apologize for this lengthy response, but I am using it to illustrate a point. My point is that even deep thinkers can be into art and even be good at it, but it is not likely to be something that they will engage in as a career because ultimately it is an unfulfilling endeavor because for one, it may be so time consuming that one would be missing out on researching other areas of interests, and two, it requires an inordinate attention to sensory experiences and details that may make them feel, well quite exhausted! It can be an enjoyable hobby on the side though.
. I doubt this is the case, but children are impressionable.