A Couple of Artworks

Here are two artworks that started in our weekly life drawing sessions.  In both, I got to a certain point, didn't like it, wiped it out, and started over.  Both wound up being muted and quiet, which in these cases is a pretty good quality, I think.

This was the first one, a portrait of Apryl.  I started it in charcoal and let the drawing tell me what it wanted.  From the very first, it wanted to be quiet.  I worked on getting the drawing right, but wasn't successful.  Well, it was kinda close, but not there, so I wiped it out and started over on the same sheet.  This time, I saw some of what was wrong and corrected it.  Then I began working with the pastels.  Here's where the drawing's demands for quiet really showed up.  It didn't want strong reds and yellows in the skin tones, and didn't want strong reddish-browns in the hair.  So I kept the colors barely there.  At the end of the night, it looked pretty good, but the likeness still wasn't quite right.  I took a couple of reference photos and, a few days later (with a fresh viewpoint), I reworked it.  It really didn't take much: the face was very slightly too long and her mouth was a bit too far down.  Two hours of work and this was done.  

This drawing of Emma was started in our most recent life drawing session.  It was another artwork that told me from the get-go that it wanted to be quiet.  I blocked in the figure in charcoal, then developed it to a higher level than what you see now.  It was still relatively un-developed, though - nothing was brought up to what most people consider "finished" except maybe in the face.  Then I brought in the pastels and messed it up.  The colors were too harsh.  So, one hour into a two-hour session, I wiped it out.  This left a lot of marks on the paper that I thought were interesting.  I re-developed only a few areas of the drawing in charcoal, primarily the face and shoulder.  Then I brought in the pastels, only with a very light touch, and gave her some skin tones in the head shoulders, and parts of her arms.  A couple of days later, I did some alterations: scrubbing some areas down, bringing the shapes and darks and colors up in other areas, and adding a touch of color in the background to help set her off.  Sounds simple, but it took all afternoon before it felt like it was really done.

I'm really liking the effect of the muted colors and "incomplete" drawings.  There's less specifics here, which means that you, the viewer, have to bring more of your own ideas to the artwork.  Less "telling" on my part, more "suggesting".  There's a tension between the developed and undeveloped areas that I like.  I might be on to something here.  Or not - check back in a few months!