Long pose finale

It seems like the camera upped the contrast on this photo, so... sorry about that. This was a 48-hour labor of love and hate and everything in-between. The first 46 hours were spent on the figure and the last two on the background and drapery, ha! In the end, I do feel a pretty significant sense of accomplishment--I've never pushed a drawing to this this level, and I learned a lot about value, subtlety, transitions, line, etc (oh, and also using charcoal :P). But there is still so much to learn and enormous room for improvement. That's an exciting and terrifying place to be.

Yesterday was the last day of my scholarship at the atelier, and ohh I want to keep studying so bad. Sometimes I just feel like kicking myself for not starting this kind of thing when I was 18 or something. But hindsight's 20/20, and when I think about it, 1) I had little awareness that something like this existed or was within my reach.  And 2) I don't think I was ready for it anyway. I think you really have to know who you are to want to be an artist--it takes some grit and some vision. I admire people who figure that out early on. It took me a little longer to figure out what I want, and that's okay. It's just a lot more complicated to devote the time necessary now than it would have been 10 years ago, and that's why I feel like kicking myself. 

But I'm not going to kick myself--it's rather unproductive. This has been a great experience. And let's not end this post without talking about that Bargue. Oh, the Bargue. It's so difficult to care, and I think that's what makes it so hard. I like to copy things. But I copy things that catch my eye (and I'm not too stickler about it), and these are just so stone cold (no pun intended ;) in their factuality. Yes, I can see the value in doing it, and I have no doubt that it's good for my eye and development and whatnot, but let's face it. It's miserable. 

To be more specific, I'm having some really weird issues with the chin/mouth area of the face seeming too big, and the feel of the nose. I measure these things over and over, they seem right, but the subtlety of that contour is insane. And for the life of me, I can't get those lips to sit in the right spot. I don't know. It's awful. Really, really awful. And I had to adjust the bottom line on Friday (there was the teeniest of tiniest slips in the line, which changed the trajectory of the line enough to be a problem), which moves everything that I measured from the bottom (which thankfully, wasn't anything in that mass of hair, whew). But oh well. That's enough about the Bargue. Not on my list of favorite things right now, ha. Perhaps if I bring it to a finish, I'll start to feel better about it. At the moment, the finish line seems oh-so-far away :o