45 minute pose from from last night’s life drawing session. Very much enjoyed it and I’m happy with the solidity of the forms and the proportions but I ended up bearing down too hard on the shading and highlights to the point that she looked like she’s made of plastic!

I am currently using Vilppu’s techniques, and I think my current problems with their application are:

1. Using atmospheric perspective too early and/or too hard

2. Misunderstanding the use of form shadow versus observed lighting

3. Not spending the time to carefully describe the forms of smaller details (e.g. face, fingers) and reverting back to symbols, making them look weird and flat

I also made her look a lot older than she is IRL! Again, more subtlety is probably needed in terms of facial features—enough to bring out the shapes but not so much that they turn into the harder lines of age.

The main thing I need to work on next week: Don’t bear down too hard too early. Do many more passes and build up slowly.

Hokusai: “When I reach 80 years I hope to have made increasing progress, and at 90 to see further into the underlying principles of things, so that at 100 years I will have achieved a divine state in my art and at 110 every dot and every stroke will be as though alive.”