2nd entry for June 8, 2015

These are four 5-minute studies at top, and a couple of 10-minute ones below. They're also a pigment liner pen on 18 x 18" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper. By the end of the session I was getting back into more of an accustomed drawing zone. The lower two did have some fast pencil underdrawing, which for me helps a lot with taking care of proportions.
Also, facial features I find much easier to delineate if I have set down a general layout of the person's head. It takes a lot of pressure off of the need to be descriptive of features while creating the head all in one pass. the downside being that each preliminary mark takes time out of the available time for a pose someone is holding.

3rd Entry for June 24, 2010

Often we will have an extra set of five short poses in the middle of a drawing session, after we've taken a longer break.
the last few times I've tried a drawing challenge for myself: because we all seem to have a preferred `default' size to draw, I'm trying to mix that up. I set pairs of tick marks in random spacings, and try to fit each gesture precisely within them. It's a good brain teaser.
After that the other studies are each from 15 minute poses.

Entry for July 9th, 2009

On Thursday I took time out of prepping for the Rejects show, and followed Z- to Artists 25, where she was in the second week of a portrait session. I didn't get a spot-on likeness, but came close. The grey study took about 1.5 hours, and is Conte crayon on 24 x 36 newsprint.
The sandy-coloured one is about 45 minutes, Conte on Japanese paper. At the time, Z- was saying she felt that the Japanese paper one was sitting in the `uncanny valley' territory for her - disturbing in its closeness to her, but more disturbing due to still being off somehow. In the image posted here, I slightly compressed the lower part of her face and neck, and to me it reads much better - what a difference little proportional shifts (5% or so) make to a face.
The eyes are still not right - I was too far away to see them clearly (and too lazy to stand up and come closer...)

2nd entry for March 29, 2009

These were 15-minute studies. I was still wrestling with scale, but in the bottom one (the last of the evening) I tried something unusual for me: realising that my seated position gave me a distorted view of the top of my drawing board, I slightly compressed the vertical forms at the top of the page as I was drawing. When I stood up, the overall proportions were a little better than ususal.
It was a sort of deliberate anamorphosis.

Entry for March 24, 2009

Another late arrival at Artists 25. E- was working this time. I had time to do these 4 poses, all in the 15 to 20-minute range.
I have to admit that the study of E- with her shoe was, in actuality, quite distorted perspectivally. It was like an anamorphosis, with the top of the drawing really small & the bottom part way too big. Reversing the perspective effect in photoshop makes this a quite well-proportioned study. I was standing looking down at my drawing pad, rather than my usual lazy-man sitting, and wonder if the changed angle of sight on my drawing led me to wrongly 'perspective-compensate' what was being set down on the paper.

That or I was just getting bigger as I kept drawing.

3rd entry for March 12, 2009

These were some more 3-minute poses that P- took. At our break we were comparing notes - I find drawing a figure in a big hoop especially challenging, as the figure's parts have to hit on the right part of the circle, plus it often swivels slightly , which - especially end-on to the rim - noticeably changes how things line up against each other. Others like the hoop for just that reason- it offers a visible `frame' to help gauge where limbs are.
All the same, I'm happy as a clam while I'm working on these, even when it is more of a stretch.