Crit on long portraits & the longer one to come..

The most constructive concept I took from the Long Portrait Critique in Wednesday's class was the style and overall look of all the finished projects. Each one had it's own line quality, line width, and value to finish it off. I kept my portraits planar and sketchy, with little line variation. I most enjoyed the portraits with great dark to light contrast to enhance overall three-dimensionality (thanks Dan!) of the model on a two-dimensional piece of paper.

So now we proceed into the large-scale skeletal structure. With so much time spent on one drawing, I'm concerned most with becoming bored or uninterested in the subject matter. This will unmotivate me to continue. With that said, I have briefly researched other life drawing styles on Google--sorry it is too cold and wet out for me to venture to the library.

This first one is done by Stephan Perreault. I enjoy it because the silhouette of the actual form and body is clean and concise. I enjoy the shading of the background being dark and the highlights of the picture being colored in white charcoal. I think this one is most reminiscent of my style of work because of the simplified, slightly cartoonish-style; clean, soft lines and angles:


This next one is pretty interesting based on the simplification the artist is representing. There is enough value information to recognize a form, however the details have been lost seemingly to preserve anonymity of the individual models. The almost non-existent outline of the bodies still reveal a sense of the form. I enjoy the use of value in this one. The treatment may be similar to what I transfer on the painting we do in the coming weeks.

The shadows of this last one is perfect for the value I would like to include in my long-portraits. I love that soft, blurred style where the figure or object seems to be sitting in a shadow.

This last one I included simply because I LOVE pastels. I've worked with them for 9 years now and I can't get enough of them! I'm almost thinking now that my long-portrait will be one drawing instead of two, but the finishing touch will be to go over and redo the value with pastels to get a more realistic piece. What are your thoughts?