A Young Girl and an Older Gentleman

Over the past month I have been working on a long-pose portrait drawing (about 18 hours). Sadly, I did not make much progress and the pose is now over. In short, I am incredibly slow... As my experience grows I hope that I will become faster. However, it seems the more I learn about the methods and practices of the French Academy of the 19th c. the slower my hand moves.

Here is a 3-part progression of the drawing (graphite on Borden & Riley Plate finish bristol paper). There were many more phases between each of these drawings, but these provide a good idea of the snail's pace of my current practice:

Out with the old, in with the new...

Today we started a new long portrait pose of an older gentleman. Here is the first glimpse after a couple hours of drawing:

I am trying out new paper for this one. The drawing is graphite (H), on Fabriano Artistico 300g. So far, I really like the texture and quality of this Italian paper. I struggled with the paper I worked on for the previous drawing (it was just far too slick and had almost no tooth). Since I'm trying to learn how to draw not how to skate, I thought I'd dry a different surface. Lesson of the day: materials matter.

Head Case

Here are a couple head studies from this week's classes.

Johnny, 18x24 graphite on newsprint (I definitely would not recommended newsprint for drawings like this. It does NOT hold its form very well. Stick to newsprint if doing quick gesture drawings, otherwise it's really only good for the news).

Anna, graphite on paper, 11x14. (the model's less-than-pleased attitude is not exaggerated).