Yes! Still alive.

On with plate 27. I’m trying to stick closer to the book’s recommended approach on this one, so after the refining of the outline, the next step is to block first the shadows, which I’ve done, and then the halftones, which I’m about half done with. From a distance, these look OK, but [...]

Closed the loop on the preliminary outline for plate 27 tonight; so light, in vine charcoal, that it’s about impossible to get into focus and photograph, and only if the much darker original isn’t next to it, drowning out the white balance.

Most of the toe block-in I actually did freehand instead of sight-size, because my [...]

First life drawing of the new decade. Haven’t gotten “2010″ into my fingers’ muscle memory yet.

Once again, I didn’t draw feet. I’m actually looking at the whole leg now, but I went ahead and did the figure anyway. As usual, not enough time to finish any of them. The model seemed to like them, though, [...]

OK, I finally have Bargue Plate 27 underway.

…what? You can’t see it? I’ve made a dot for the high mark, and a dot for the low mark. That’s how you start. That’s not as easy as it looks, either.

Doing this one slightly differently, in that I’m taping off a central cross and working from the [...]

Finished the value scales. These take longer than you’d think; many hours. I did them as evenly as I could, and checked the value ranges with the spectrophotometer; these are all within one-tenth of a Munsell value. The top row uses the midtone of the paper and white or black over it transparently to hit [...]

I ordered some Canson Mi-Tintes paper (“blue”) on several folks’ recommendations, and so far I’m liking it a lot. The smooth side is a lot less toothy than the Strathmore charcoal 500 series, but still has a good amount to grab with.

I’m planning a couple of drawings right now that I’ll be doing on this [...]

My youngest niece. I’m happy with this one. Her mom was, too. 8½”x11″, charcoal on yellow bristol paper.

…where I’ve got a couple of things on the easel that I’m working hard on and would normally be posting in-progress shots of now and then… except that they’re gifts for people who read this blog, and so, well… you’ll just have to use your imagination.

My koan for the day, though, is “dare to finish.” [...]

Tonight was unusual: we had two models. The lady who was scheduled to pose said her boyfriend was also interested in posing, and she asked if they could pose together. It was his first time. I was a little dubious at first – and especially, being a young couple, whether there might be any – [...]