Back at last

After nearly 6 weeks absence I am back up and blogging again.  Yes, I have been busy doing my art degree but life has been intervening ad well.  Father in law has been gravely ill so Chris and I have been spending time in Durham.  I have been spending a lot of time concentrating on driving and managed to pass my test at the first attempt on 29 October so am roaming freely at the moment! And sadly Featherstonhaugh, my favourite cat died on 2 November from kidney failure.  But on with the artwork....

My despair in drawing studies continues.  Everynow and then there is a glimmer of hope but my lack of observational discipline keeps coming back to haunt me.  Our next task was to use tone rather than line to draw with.  Sheets of paper are covered with charcoal and then using either a plastic or kneedable rubber the charcoal is lifted out of the picture so:

Sadly I managed to get two half pictures here: the head and torso and then the lower leg and foot.  I managed to screw up the proportions of the upper leg completely....

and

Upton was standing next to me and because he is very good he got it right AND he was kind enough to let me share his work on my blog.  Upton's study:

We then did two more studies but once again I was not concentrating on my observation and so the pieces are at best rather lack lustre:

The poor model really didn't deserve this last one at all.