Young Life in Freetown: Portrait of an Artist
You can never do too much drawing. Abbas Jalloh hasn't stopped since he drew his first diagram in primary school. By high school, he had broken free from lines and drew a picture of Justin Bieber so well that he became one of the most popular people at school. "To be honest, I cannot say my work is priceless,” said the now 22-year-old mass communications student at Fourah Bay College. "I love sketching and drawing because it looks realistic after the work is completed," he said. He doesn't do exhibitions because he doesn't have a space to showcase his work. However, there are people who sponsor him. Some pay fairly well too for their sketches. "Artistically, my drawing mentors are many,” he said. “ Aliya, a Sierra Leonean who did lots of the paintings at one of the biggest nightclubs at Calabatown; Theophilus Boateng a.k.a. TheoPencil, the unmatchable Ghanaian artist and millionaire as well, who specializes in pencil; and Olusegun Olumede, a N...