Charcoal sketch

8x8", willow charcoal on hahnemule ingres paper

I've been trading babysitting with a neighbor so I can run over for figure drawing sessions a couple afternoons a week. This little guy is a sweet baby. He doesn't usually nap while he's over here, but when he fell asleep in the last 15 minutes that he was here yesterday, I quickly grabbed whatever drawing utensils I could find at the moment and did a 15-minute sketch from life. I snapped a photo with my phone before he moved, so I fiddled with it for another couple hours between last night and today, trying to improve the likeness. I really don't like drawing from photos most the time, but it's better if I can get a start from life. I'm finding that the overall shape of the head is just as important to achieving a likeness of a person as the placement of the features (and that's where most of the fiddling was done on this one--the head shape, I mean).

Also, I'm still trying to figure out charcoal. I used a brush to soften this one. Baby faces are tricky because everything's so soft and round and there aren't a lot of hard lines (especially where this one was almost completely in shadow--the value transitions were pretty subtle). So yeah, I don't know. Small distraction, but I figure I might as well jump when the moment arises. Maybe I'll get back to that Sargent later tonight. 

And I've been giving myself a little break from painting. I was getting too frustrated. Though, I have to say. I saw one of the most beautiful human beings I've ever seen in my life last week. Some friends had a Swedish high school exchange student over to carve pumpkins, and he had just about the most perfect face I've ever seen (whatever that means). He was a super nice kid too, and I really wanted to paint him (not that I even could at this point--it's just that nagging painter's soul. I swear I was a painter in another life ;). So, all that to say, I'm not giving up on painting yet. Just taking a little break for a minute. Drawing is so much more manageable.