Cheryl

[Anna Wakitsch]

Sharon,
Thank you! yes, I am leaving it in this state, due to the slow rate at which I work and the amount of time we had with the model.

Jeff,
I have scores of pages of notes where I wrote down advice from Tony... I'll have to find some gems and post them later!

Alex,
yes, the legs are still in the block-in stage, with straight line segments that never got resolved to a contour. I agree though that the calf may be a little stiff nonetheless.

re: reference points
They usually change with the position of the figure... Usually I try to mark the pit of the neck, the navel, and the creases where the underarms are.

[Mari DeRuntz]

Anna, beautiful drawing.

When rendering form like an "ant crawling over the surface" like much of today's best realism, I do have one comment:

At a heavy squint, which drops you solidly in the realm of abstract design, of focus, of the simplest concept of how your values are dividing up spaces, the cast shadow of the head on the torso flattens the form conception of the oval ribcage. I'm curious whether this was intentional or one of the myriad sometimes working, sometimes not working, accidents of working from life? I enjoyed visiting your website.

Please describe how many sessions, etc. Too many newcomers expect this sort of excellence after one or two sessions.

It is a pleasure to see such serious study...

[Sharon Knettell]

Originally Posted by Mari DeRuntz

Please describe how many sessions, etc. Too many newcomers expect this sort of excellence after one or two sessions.
.

I just finished a 22"x30"simple head to thigh seated figure, sanquine on grey blue paper with white, pink and blue highlights. It took me 6, four hour sittings with my model. This kind of work takes time.

[Michele Rushworth]

Breathtaking. I highly recommend Tony Ryder's book and website to anyone wanting to know more about his methods. I took a two week painting class with him a few years ago and it had a major impact on my work.

[Anna Wakitsch]

Mari,

We had, if I remember correctly, 5 three-hour sessions with this model; the drawing is quite small. So yes, it does take some time to draw in this method!

No, the flattening cast shadow was not intentionally set up when posing and lighting the model; I guess at that point I was more concerned with getting her features lit in an interesting way.