For several weeks of a figure drawing class, I kept using toned paper or making toned paper with graphite and drawing in the positives. It's tricky getting the right value balance working only in the whites. This drawing was done in Conte Crayons and a problem with Conte Crayons, or blessing really, is that you can't easily take back missteps in the drawing.

This particular session went really well and I even had time enough to finish the face. Quite often, I did not finish a figure torso within a regular class period. Time was always spent talking about different art concepts, watching a demonstration or showing and reviewing work... and then drawing. As I've noted on another drawing here at dA, I tend to leave the head and face, the portrait drawing, out of figure drawings. I intentionally focus on the torso and only occasionally complete the entire study.

Two questions I ask myself when looking at this drawing, is his left eye to close to his nose (the eye on the right) and is his ear too big? I probably rushed through the portrait portion of the figure drawing too fast since I was running out of time. I think his nose was red too, hehe!


Drawn on a large, smooth, toned art paper... approx the same size as my 20" x 26" cover stock paper.