Lauren

A good day became a very good evening early this week! For the first time in 2 1/2 years, I was able to participate with the weekly figure drawing group. Lauren was the model and we had her seated with arms supported, wound with long scarves hung from the ceiling.  A nice pose!

I was more interested in the figure than the fabric so I just left that out. I drew more quickly than I would have in the past, wanting to get an over-all understanding of the pose before settling down. I actually did three drawings, each a bit more lengthy than the last.  First a forgettable 15 min sketch,  a second one taking 40 minutes and I think the last (here right) must have been about an hour. Now I'd like to go back and do one more, a carefully rendered three hour job,  carefully measuring to get the proportions more correct. (I know! There I go contradicting myself again!)









Here on the left is a similar drawing done a few years ago. It's one that I really don't like as much but has better body proportions. Yes, the model above is much thinner but that does not account for the overly generous space between chin and mid breast. Typically that space is approximately one "head" so there's certainly some exaggeration there.  Still, I prefer that looser drawing because being less complete, it is more interesting. I was so diligent with features like the hair in this second piece, being so precise, that it is, as the old saying goes,  "... more prose than poetry."

Leaving out areas of her body involves the viewer, letting him contribute in imagination, making it a more engrossing piece. - At least that's the way it works for me.  It's much like Dan in his baker's duds in the previous post, there's more room for creativity with the distinction between subject and background in flux.  But then again, as with so many artists, we often prefer more recent work to the old, so it could be just plain bias! (Hmm, Age discrimination?)  In the end it's your work, deal with it as you will but do it with love and purpose and you will always be happy to own it!


"So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing."   T. S. Eliot

"It is love alone that gives worth to all things."  Saint Teresa of Avila