This pose went well. I drew it smaller because some portraits use too much of the page as if you are standing ten inches away from the person. This isn't very common in real life. I like drawing big - there is too much tendency to draw real small so big is good but drawing big can be overdone too.
Here it seemed I was starting out quite small but by the time the neck, shoulders and hair were worked in the whole thing fits on the page just right.
I used a new (to me) art tool here too. It's about as old and low tech as possible and I am amazed that I never had one in my hand before. Its a paper blending stick, really just a pencil shaped roll of paper that's tapered like a pencil. you work over and area with your pencil marks on it already and smudge the strokes together. This creates soft blending and transitions that really smoothes out skin tones realistically.
Often I would blend with my fingertip or paper towel but this tool is a lot more accurate and controllable.
It's a lot of fun to use.
Here's a photo of my materials. Pencils of various hardness. Several types of erasures, rulers and the white paper blender.
Incidentally, this whole drawing seemed to be going nowhere at the start. I almost quit it in search of another pose but I kept just working on the thing that was the most 'off', checking position and size and little by little it fell into place - a good lesson
As I look at this post it appears that the subjects head was tilted slightly but I drew her straight up. It's a small thing but subtle differences like this are what creates the mood and atmosphere of a pose.
Sometimes seeing images on the computer brings new aspects to light. It's a different way of proofing a drawing.
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