Portraiture course, week 4

For the first half of the class, I was despondent, discouraged, and depressed at what was appearing on my paper ... to the point of doing a few doodles of the others, who were obviously enjoying the session - the third session of a long pose. About half the class was painting ... but painting would be an unnecessary complication for me

You can see at a glance that the drawing wasn't going well - the eyes are too high, how could I not see that straight away? -

Lots of drawing in and rubbing out, looking and drawing and rubbing out.... I wasn't cheered by "helpful" comments about how brave I was to work so big (A2) ... especially when the drawing was obviously looking so awful - er, let me rephrase that ... when the drawing was obviously still in its very early stages.

Plus, due to my broken camera, I was using the ipad to take photos (so you'll get some of the art-room action in the background), and it sometimes wouldn't "click", why is that??

Finally I dared to use the eraser and started to feel a bit more in control of what was appearing and even started to enjoy the drawing process -

The mouth proved a problem (too symmetrical) ... And the nose is wrong, the left side of her face is taking up too much room (trying to be symmetrical!) -

 A few changes and it's looking more "real" -

 When I took it home, before spraying with fixative, I filled in the hair a bit, but it still looks like plumes...

Given the unpromising start, the finished picture is a surprise to me. Still lots of room for improvement, but I feel I'm starting to "see" better.