Arm and Cap

Am back into elbows again, as always.

Liked the way this guy was holding his head in his hand, but he moved the first couple of attempts...

...but happy with the final sketch. Feel I got the cap peak right for a change.

Maybe, somewhere in between all the lines and tries and sketching there is something approaching the truth of him. 

Maybe.

Left handed

Had to be done. Reading about mixing things up a bit, doing things differently. One of the suggestions was doing things left handed ( if, like me, you are right handed )

Okay, let's sketch only with my left hand for a day.

The results...

... aren't anywhere near as interesting as the doing of them.  I seemed to have more arm that I was used to. I don't know what I do with my right elbow when I draw, but my left one suddenly had it's own ideas of it's place in the physical universe. It was like wrestling an ironing board. The line, as such, is not so different, but the feeling of drawing it was the most unusual thing.

Will do more. If only to conquer the elbow.

Bad elbow, down, down.

Sketch 3

This is the kind of sketch I enjoy doing, when you simply draw a continuous line around the page, following the subject with your eyes as you do so, and trying to catch as much as possible with as few lines.

This sketch is from a few years back, it was a hot summer morning on the Docklands light railway, heading towards Greenwich. ( I was working there at the time. ) I think I can even be accurate enough to say it was draw between Limehouse and West India Quay stations. I can still see the guy leaning on the seat division by the door as the light passed behind him. Sketch books are great for that, they can capture the whole moment of drawing in your memory, not just the subject, but where you were, how you felt, the weather, the light...

Elbows are brilliant things to draw. There is such a specific curve and weight to them, that swell of forearm muscle leading up to the dual points made by the head of the humerus. Very satisfying.