Don't know what I'll do when (if ever) I reach post 92. Start again, I suppose.
Well, have done my bit of procrastinating but as I've been on my feet most of the day concentrating quite hard during life drawing class, I don't feel too bad for zoning out for 30 minutes or so.
Funny thing with portraiture. It's hard. Not funny, I know, but I don't remember it being this hard to get a close likeness to someone. We had a male model whose finished portrait was a dead ringer for Vladimir Putin. Another male model who has resembled Jack Nicholson in one sitting and Paul Newman in today's sitting. Managed to fit in two portraits; the second one looked like a mug shot for a zonked out vampire. Don't know how I'm getting it so wrong.
The other week I drew the same (female) model 4 times in 3 hours. By the fourth portrait I was pretty close - no cigar but at least a cigarillo.
While Paul Newman was emerging from beneath my charcoal I got the giggles. David was facing me and he has this look of a slightly impish faun anyway and, knowing how far off the mark I get, he knew I'd missed again. I could see it in his eyes. He has to hold perfectly still so I'm trying to hold in my laughter so as not to affect him which only made it worse. Shirley thought I was crying and came to see what the matter was. That was the cool shower I needed to pull myself together.
Even so, despite my repeated failures I am just so glad to draw. What a privilege it is to make marks on paper. No wonder early man was driven to draw on cave walls. It's a magical act.
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