I’m still in the process of loosening up my work. I hope to one day achieve the desired expression with minimal strokes and indications of shading and color. I’m finding it difficult not to work back into something to try to give it more of what the reference seems to dictate. So what I’ve been trying to do is find the gesture and work from there.
The subject is from a photo reference. I took a slight departure from the reference and purposely left out some of what I considered minor distractions like the right hand peaking out from behind the left arm in the hair, and the right food that showed a toe or two in the background. In the photo you can rationalize plainly what these things are but in this drawing it was more vague.
I wanted to use a contour line in gesture as my basis and work around it but as always I ended up “rendering” some of the form instead of simply and subtlely indicting it. Again, I’m not displeased with the work. I feel like I want to revisit it and give more weight to the reference. For right now, there she sits.