Lost in Thought

My favorite aspect of this drawing is the way the arm bleeds into the shadows of the drapery, it seems fluid to me.  Liquid-like. 

Lady B takes a seat

Nice pose that takes decent advantage of the strong lighting.  Given time this could have been pushed further. 

It's all there

I love it when such a loosely rendered image contains everything it needs.  I don't even mind the absence of her face in this one.

Took a break for the holidays...

Long pose from our last session.  Having her arm cut through the midsection creates two separate drawings.  I think I failed to pull this one together correctly.  This comes from not stepping back in the early stages, although I did work on the upper body for the largest portion of the session and knocked in the hips and legs in the last couple of minutes.  Still, if I had spent a few moments at the outset and made sure the two halves worked together I'd be in a much stronger position to have a decent finished piece.

Hippy little study

What to say about some real basic shapes... not much. 

Sketchy, as my grandson would say

Loose and light.  But I like it.  A good warm up.

Possibly the last gestures of Lady B

Lady B must move on with things and this very well may have been her swan song for The Black Hand Group.  If so, it was a great run and I truly appreciate all of the effort that she has put into working with us. 

Long and lean

This is my favorite from the evening.  I put a bit more time in after the model broke pose as I was absolutely fascinated with the heavy shadows.  This was way too much fun to have been a mere 10 minute pose.

Long pose

There are some really interesting parts to this drawing.  I was really getting involved with the strong shadows and got absolutely enthralled with the play of light and dark.  Hard shadows becoming mid-tones abutted by strong light.  So much fun...

Partial torso

Just the right side of the model's torso in this one.  I was really wanting to explore the relation between the ribs and the abdomen, so many subtle shades and dimensions.  I don't think I was looking for a finished drawing, just a journey with the charcoal.

Stylized face

I like where I was going with this quick little study.  A simplified approach to Lady B's face really helped me get away from trying to be so precise, especially with a five minute drawing.

Gestures of Lady B

Inspired is the word I used for her gesture poses.  Really wish a couple of them would have been turned into longer pieces.

Yet another back view

A more fully rendered (not by much though) sketch of Lady B's back.  I really enjoyed the process of this one.  I wish that I had gone with lost edges, at least in areas of the right side of her torso, letting her interact with the paper/background.

Classic back

Simple and elegant, just not complete.

Long pose

Not sure why I didn't get very far in this one.  I had to erase her face a few times as the angle kept changing.  I'll chalk it up to that.  Well, that and getting a bit too involved with getting the fingers right.

Took a break...

The gestures from Thursday.  B always does a great job and I really enjoy the sessions with her.