Portrait practice

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This was a quick hour-long copy sketch I did yesterday afternoon in prep for portrait class last night. I forgot to take a picture of my portrait start after class. And I'll probably start over next week anyway. I had gotten the portrait basically blocked in in the first 25 minutes, and then everyone decided to tilt the head in the second session. So I should have started over, but I didn't and it's no good to draw a tilted face on a straight head. Anyway, this copy is done after a contemporary artist, and she's really good. I like how all the shapes on the face connect. It's a little mysterious to me. I'm trying to adopt this kind of thinking, and maybe I need to only look at the model with half-closed eyes for the first little while because I see too much detail/variation in the value structure (I seem to be having that trouble with my roses too!). But something I'm noticing with good painting of any genre is that the darks connect, and the lights connect. I don't know what to call that, but I'm becoming somewhat aware of it. The value composition is divided into two major light/dark masses, with subtle variation within each. So I'm trying to think that way, but it's not easy to do.

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