Life Drawing week 2

A lot more false starts this week; really struggling with the 2 minute quick poses, getting the basic curvature of the figures down in such quick time doesn't come naturally. The only pieces I considered finished enough to keep hold of were a 5 minute and the two longer seated poses.

This was the 5th pose of the evening, and the first where I felt that I got a handle on the relationships between the arm, the torso and the legs. Before this I was struggling to get anything significant on the page.

This was a 20 minute pose, and I felt that I managed to capture some of the dynamism of the muscles, although I think the transition from upper to lower body is a little truncated. One important piece of advice I was given was to avoid awkward line transitions, such as where the muscle down the centre of the back leads on to the tricep almost exactly in line. By using a shaded patch instead of continuing the same line over to different 3-dimensional planes, it looks less awkward. Picking out lighter patches can also break up these lines.

The angle of the head resting on the shoulder in this 20 minute pose presented a real challenge in terms of relative size and also trying not to make the model look uncomfortably hunched. I think the left shoulder and back ended up a little too rounded, the left hand ended up rushed and too small and at the wrong angle. The left arm in general is a little too short, and too narrow throughout. The face was an afterthought, so lacks character and definition, and is too full faced (the pose was more downturned).

Overall this week was even more challenging that last week. The first thing to take care of is to practice two minute poses, to be able to quickly get from the top to the bottom of the pose without getting bogged down with detail too soon. This goes for longer poses too; I was in a rush to get to work on the last piece so didn't take the time to rough out the full pose, starting instead with the left arm and torso, which led to the incorrect size relationships. The trunk and legs feel much more accomplished though.
Secondly, while taking care of the physical shape, I should start paying more attention to shading to capture the light that is actually in the space better, rather than simply using it to define angles as works best for me.
Thirdly- faces. I need a viable short technique for sketching in faces without getting bogged down with too much character. Just the eyeline and jaw should suffice.