Figure Drawing

Last night was an off-night for me. My husband says I'm too hard on myself and he thinks this is a perfectly good drawing :) And, you know, he's probably right--at least about me being too critical of myself ;) I think the way I perceive my drawings is sometimes related to how much frustration I feel while creating them. I like things to feel at least somewhat under control. Sometimes I get into a rhythm of drawing, where I can look back and forth between my drawing and the model and quickly evaluate what's going on and make adjustments, but last night I was just dragging. I was tired--it's spring break this week, and it's thrown off our whole daily schedule, which I've learned is VERY important with small children. Exhaustion never bodes well for my artistic attempts :P

The first line of a Thoreau poem kept coming to mind: "I am a parcel of vain strivings, tied by a chance bond together". (it's a great poem. go check it out). Not usually one I associate with creating art, but the "vain strivings" certainly seemed to fit!

On the left is where I left it last night, but I got up this morning and tried to make a few adjustments Brock had suggested last night. It's still not where I would like it to be (and I probably should have just left the face alone. I drew it too small, for sure). But this is where it's going to stay and I'll just hope for better luck next time. :P I liked Ryan's suggestion to look for parallel lines in the pose to help get the overall gestural rhythm from the start (I've definitely noticed the parallel lines Bargue picks up on in his figures). I'll try to keep that in mind next time (and hope for a better night's sleep the night before ;).