Long pose in progress

It's the last few days of this pose and I'm almost starting to despise this drawing. Our regular teacher is out of town and we have a previous graduate filling in for critiques, which is a good thing (I think it's great to have multiple people critiquing your work). He's bringing up some things, though, that are a bit different in approach from what I've been doing. And it's making me realize that my mindset on this drawing has been pretty closed off for a while. I've heard someone say that you want to keep the drawing/painting open (or changeable) as long as possible. And this drawing (or my perception of this drawing) hasn't been. Maybe that's the consequence of focusing on shape. Or working sight-size where it's easy to get lost in the measurements. Or just of being inside my head--I've always had a tendency to get a little too microscopic, and sometimes I think working with such a focus on accuracy tends to magnify that. I don't know. I feel like bagging the whole thing (what's that about beating a dead horse?), but I'll give it a few more hours (that is, if I don't catch my kids' nasty sore throat/cold... I almost feel it coming on... or is that psychosomatic? ;). If I make it to the last sessions, I'll try to bring it to a place where it seems to fit together as a whole. I spent some time brushing off pigment in the shadows that had gotten too heavy, and now I have to somehow unify those shapes, then bring it all together and tie it in with the lights (and make the lights feel like they are describing the form better). Maybe too much to accomplish in the time I have left.

Anyway, the more I study, the less I feel like I have any handle on what I'm doing. I spend a lot of time trying to sort through what I'm supposed to be doing (which is often different depending on who I'm talking to) and pushing against my natural inclinations, and it can just be a little exhausting. Next week we'll be painting pears, and that sounds like fun (at least, it does for now ;).