A rather bad attempt at memory drawing

Ugh, well, another little mess I've made. I started this portrait one night a couple months ago, and since it was far from finished, I really had nothing to lose by drawing over it. I thought it might be interesting to give drawing from memory another try.

I just don't like failing. I don't think it ever feels good--not for me or anyone else. Not that I really expected anything different when I started working over this drawing. I knew it would be nothing but a learning experience. But somehow, it still hurts to fall on your face, even if you see the fall coming! So go ahead and quit following my blog. Just go somewhere else where you can see pretty pictures every day. I won't mind ;)

But what's the lesson here? Was there any takeaway from this failure? Drawing from memory is probably a helpful skill to have if you want to invent compositions before getting a model. If you want to sketch things out beforehand. And I think in order to do that, it would help to have a good understanding of anatomical proportions and conventions. Like that little notch beneath the neck there--where does it fall in relation to the neck/shoulders? I took my best guess, but it could have been a much more educated guess. And if you're drawing a figure from life even, and want to make sense of an area that isn't making a lot of visual sense--if you had a knowledge of what you were looking at, you could make it make better sense. So I guess maybe I need to learn some of those things. And then there's the issue of guessing at the values between the shadows and the highlights--yikes. I don't know--not there yet.

On the other hand, if I had drawn this same portrait 5 years ago, I probably would have been happier with it than I am now. So maybe that says something--if not about my ability, at least about my perception. Silver linings.