Looking in on the Past

Above is a figure drawing done during a class in my undergraduate days at State University of New York (SUNY) in Cortland, New York. I still enjoy the broad quality of how I rendered the figure here. Couldn't predict that I would later go on to teach figure drawing at Indiana state University, Terre Haute IN. But I can see that having had little instruction concerning the figure, at this point, I already had an innate sense of proportions and depth. I feel that I don't enjoy working with charcoal now, when drawing the figure, but I sure knew how to use it then, I see. Time changes many things. I now like drawing the figure with liquid acrylics and a brush, aiming to describe form with an economy of line, hoping to say it all with very little. It's a different kind of challenge, and it somehow reminds me of the fashion drawings I've done in the past. (Click on "Fashion Drawings" on the map on my website. Also see the slide show on the page "Portraits and Figures", as you scroll down .)