2nd Entry for Mar 25, 2011

(People looking for life drawing instruction - or basic perspective instruction - should take note that I have an intermediate/advanced life drawing class on Wednesday evenings starting in a few days at the TSA, and a perspective basics class on Tuesday mornings. Both run for 10 weeks, and you can get more info through the TSA website. There is still space for any interested students, and all ages of adults are welcome.)

These are two 10-minute studies above, and two 15-minute ones below. All are on 18 x 24" cartridge paper, done with 9B graphite.

This drawing session was the fifth one I took part in within the week, and the tenth in two weeks. Five sessions a week is quite a lot - more than I usually do, and I believe this was the point at which I was hitting the diminishing returns mark;  the drawing was, in my opinion, more uneven this night. The topmost ten-minute study is on the weak side, the one below it has good focus, and I peaked on the back study. Chester, one of my drawing students, who was also studying anatomy that term, was sitting beside me that evening. The lighting and pose really showed off G-   's body structures, and I particularly wanted to show the ridge of highlight running across the top edge of her right latissimus muscle, to point that out to him. One could very readily parse out all the shoulder musculature when G-   was holding this pose.

The last two poses G-  was facing in my general direction, so I got stuck on drawing her head ( not that ther's anything ultimately wrong with that). On the first one her face was mostly in shadow. Conours and shadow shapes are the two things that most help me with faces, and this viewpoint didn't have so much of either, and the likeness is weak on that one.

The last study I recognise much more as G-  .  The additional contrast between lit and shadowed areas, and the 3/4 view help.  3/4 views of heads like this lowest one are much more contour-friendly, as the edges of lids, nose, chin and middle of lips all jut out against the forms behind them of the face.