Figuratively speaking

Having been to my life drawing class on Saturday morning, I feel, as usual, a sense of accomplishment,since I  take pleasure in using the skills I've developed over many years.  This drawing, as it took shape on the page, reminded me of a drawing I did years ago, I remember so clearly, of a model in a leotard who posed for a figure class I had arranged in Fanwood, New Jersey, and in which I was also drawing. I need to go through some of my small sketchbooks and see if I can find it, as it was like "visiting an old friend" as she appeared on the page on Saturday. It's probably my favorite of the drawings I did that day, because I love when I can express the forms with a minimum of fussiness, and all the lines find their right places on the page, because I feel like I know just where to put them without any preliminary drawings, without any erasures of corrections. I also love that I've  defined only a section of the figure, running the drawing off the picture plane. She's more sculptural that way. Below I will post a few of the other sketches accomplished the same day.

I developed this drawing using a brush with various  
mixed hues of liquid acrylic on toned paper.  Seemed like the choices of paper I had with me were all dark values.  That's fine with me, as I do enjoy pulling the figure forward out of the space, and making the negative spaces recede. Unfortunately, since the poses are "timed" in the class, I sometimes find myself running out of time before I'm quite through.

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The figure on the right, above, is from the previous week, sketching  from a male model. The drawing on the left is a drawing of the same female model I worked from in this Saturday's class.

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