2nd entry for Jan 28, 2013

These are some more 2-minute and 3-minute studies with a Sakura Graphic felt pen. I do find the thickness and absoluteness of the pen's line intimidating, especially where subtle contours occur, like faces.
It may sound hokey, but as I was drawing these I was internally exhorting myself to "not fear the pen", and to just trust in the potential of what came out. Lately I feel I've also begun to gain a better grasp on a couple of facial details that are making it easier to choose which are key details with motr confidence.

2nd entry for February 24, 2009

These were two 20-minute poses. I was fairly happy with how the evening was unfolding (in spite of some personal stuff that was tugging on my consciousness).

Happy until the person sitting beside me happened to note in passing of the standing figure those 4 words I dread - "it looks like you".

Now on some level that is a little inevitable - at least some of the time. Our own features are our subconscious default setting. But F- 's facial features are rather different from mine, so if this woman can see me in a drawing of him I've missed his face by a wide margin. Worse still, that that can be a blind spot, until someone points it out.

Most times that just rolls off as amusing, but this time it was like a little confidence landmine, that after so many years I could still be missing someone elses's features so broadly. but I swallowed the claever retorts, and kept working (albeit fairly quietly...)

- sigh -

4th Entry for November 30th

These were 15-minute poses. It has been a couple of months since I have drawn Z- and I was struck by how her confidence, presence & stamina as a model have grown.

5th Entry for November 27th

These were 5-minute poses that K- took. At that point it was clear that I had enough paper to last out the rest of the night, so the studies are a little looser and more assured by fitting into my preferred scale of drawing. Nevertheless, it was a race to try to set all these down fast enough.

4th Entry for November 23rd

These were 15-minute poses that L- took in the later part of that evening. She has very striking facial features- a strong underlying bone structure, which was somewhat at odds to her punky style. I always try to set down the whole figure, but often in a short pose there is not time enough to get a successful likeness and adequately describe the rest of the figure, so you can see that other areas are much more loosely drawn.

In the one study I didn't even try to do her whole figure, just focussed on getting a sense of her head on the page.

In general, I notice that the life studies I'm doing are a little more loose, a little bolder these days, while setting more information in a short span of time. The aerial artists/circus performers I've been drawing extra-fast at Diane Mcgrath's studio seem to be facilitating that in part.