Drawing in public

Work has been in crazy deadline mode again - Saturdays, Sundays, late nights, etc., etc.; so I've been lax about sketching unfortunately. (My goal is to be able to draw and post something day. Slowly but surely I'll do it!) These sketches are from a little while back. I was pretending to take notes, but really I was drawing the speakers. I think it gets weird if someone knows you're sketching them, so if I think they're on to me I try to pretend I'm looking at something else and steal glances back at my subject. Sometimes I just have to give up the sketch.

I usually don't mind people watching me draw, though: as a teenager in Texas I had a job as an amusement park caricature artist, with people standing behind me, watching and occasionally even commenting on my work. That seemed to cure me of getting too self conscious about being watched drawing. Besides, I think there's something fun about watching somebody else draw, and see their thought processes - always different than your own.