AND........STEPHANIE'S WORK!!

I missed Stephanie off yesterday, so here she is...........


" I felt I wanted a go at drawing people, get back to portraiture, so Elizabeth and I started the morning by drawing one another.  I am in outline in her drawing, but she is not (!) in mine.  Then I went outside to be beguiled by the fountains, but the wind got up and I got soaked.  I would like to see what I could do with making a grey painting of some aspect of this.  Next, a group of three in very intense conversation but the man on the right, with long dreadlocks is completely out of scale — so not very satisfactory.  The fourth was just trying to sort out what was going on at the edge of the Hungerford Bridge. It started as a blind drawing, but I got hopelessly confused…"

Stephanie NO. 1

Stephanie no. 2

Stephanie no. 3

Stephanie no. 4

The thing I find most fascinating is the difference in your drawing when you are drawing 'blind', and when you are 'looking'!!!

This comes across very clearly in this set.  The blind ones (semi-blind, in fact) are strong, confident, well seen, interesting and very useful.
Then, the two where you were 'looking' (nos. 2 and 4) are hesitant, drawn with an uncertain line, and much more self-conscious and afraid of being 'wrong'.  The difference is really amazing!

Let's start at the end - the group of 3 people.  I suspect you were very aware of them as 3 separate characters, and drew them as such - hair/eyebrows/sleeves etc.  If you had done them semi-blind, you would have seen them as one form, together with their table and their features, and everything would have locked together and worked proportionally.  Having said that, I like the profile figure on the left, leaning in.
The same is true for the water-fountain drawing - the wheel in the background is very shaky.  
HOWEVER, look at the complexity of the stuff you dealt with in no. 3 - no wonder your head started to explode!  But it's such a good drawing!  Ok, it's possible some bits appear in the wrong place, but that can be worked on with practice.  It's the quality of the drawing and seeing that counts.  Same with Elizabeth's portrait - not necessarily 'her', but totally a confident drawing of someone looking down and concentrating.

So..... more, and more, and more of these please, and then see what you can work up from them.  I will wager my hat on the fact that you can make something more from the Hungerford Bridge drawing than from the other two.  Let's see!