I wanted to draw this subject as someone who is important to me, and in this pose they are doing something important to them - praying.
In setting up the pose I decided to keep the background simple so as not to detract from the subject. I added an extra light source coming from the front righthand side. I had enjoyed the tonal studies in this part of the course and so decided to use conte crayon and charcoal, I am most confident in working with this media and they have a flexibility about them that I like in that you can overlay and manipulate them.
In terms of preparation, I first did a quick colour sketch of the subject in this pose, using my chosen media, in order to demonstrate to myself that I could achieve my end aim.
I then took a photograph of the chosen pose from which I could work out where to place the subject on my paper and prepare an initial light pencil sketch in preparation for the first sitting. I did this in order to bypass this part of the process at the first sitting. In the end this idea didn't turn out as useful as I had hoped.! Before the first proper sitting I also worked out a colour palette.
At the first sitting I got the model into the same pose and in part relying on my initial pencil sketch I began to draw using conte crayons, making alterations along the way. In this first sitting I managed to get quite far with the image. I arranged one further sitting to work on detail. At the end of the second sitting I took a photo of the subject so that I could do further detail work from the photo in my own time. It was only after the second sitting that I realised I had focussed so much on the face and not realised that the hands and arms were wrong and out of proportion. I think doing the initial pencil sketch from a photo was a mistake. In the first proper sitting, a slight variation in position despite best efforts to replicate the photo, meant that the hands were in a slightly different position in relation to the head and yet I was led by my initial sketch. I didnt check this until late in the process and it meant I had to go over my initial drawing of the arms and hands with many layers of conte and much spraying of fixative. Lesson learnt!
With the background, the Modigliani portraits inspired me to make them simple and warm. I enjoyed working on the face mainly and working on it until I got it as right as possible in my view. Because of the issue over the upper body I really struggled with the jumper and the arms. I feel the hands worked out even though they don't have the same subtle finish of the face. I would have liked to have managed to get a similar, rougher, less smooth effect on the face but I was worried about ruining what I had already achieved if I kept working on it.
In conclusion I think my portrait is ok. However it is far more formal and 'realistic' than I wanted to achieve and I was unable to achieve the free expressive style that I would have liked. I want to be more expressive in my style and I think that will hopefully come as my confidence with drawing builds. The only way is to keep practising.
