She Knows

This drawing is one of those pieces where you step back, having made your final flick of an accent and know it has broken something.

I have been trying lately to soften everything. To smooth things over…loose edges. It has been successful in my overall work, but the next step is knowing where to re-find those moments of sharp focus. Notice the hard black line running against the inside of the left arm. This is what most of her weight is resting on so it needs to appear sturdy and locked into position, the hard black line suggests this. Her face is slightly out of focus, giving the faint impression of movement. Perhaps she has just noticed your presence and half-turned in reaction.

Every point of her body has been analyzed. Where is there tension…what would move after time…what does move…what is the angle of her hips compared to her shoulders…how does that affect the muscles in her back…the crunching of the right ribs against her hip, compared to the stretched left side…etc.

So much of what makes a piece of art work esthetically is what you choose to emphasize and what you choose to leave out. The viewer does not need to see everything in a drawing to believe that he has seen it. In other words, we all know what a foot, an ear, an elbow looks like…so sometimes all that is needed is a mere suggestion of what was there in nature. The rest can be left to our own imaginations.