Sara 01/2013 - Compressed charcoal - 15 minute poses

Sara 01/2013 - Compressed charcoal - 10 minute poses

Gaia 01/2013 - Conté - 10 minute poses

Gaia 01/2013 - Charcoal - 10 minute pose

Gaia - 01/2013 - Charcoal - 5 minutes

Lucie, 01/2013 - 15 minute pose - conté

Lucie, 01/2013 - 2 minute pose

Costume session - Belly dancer - Conté crayons

Towards the end of the session, I started getting the hang of drawing the costume. I'm happy enough with the brown one. There's a Toulouse-Lautrec feeling to it that is kinda interesting.

Costume session - Belly dancer - Pencil

I very rarely use pencil for drawing of this kind, but it somehow suited this model. I find pencil quite slow to draw with, but these rough, scratchy pieces make me want to try pencil a bit more. Watch this space ;)

Costume session - Belly dancer - 2 min poses Charcoal

The session started with a good few short poses. I struggled a bit with the detailed costume with charcoal, so I moved on to pencil after just a few.

Drawing from sample, head in hands gesture

Drawing from sample.

I decided to leave this one 'unfinished looking' as I liked the contrast between the line and tone.
Lots of work to do to improve my portrait skills, but there's something about the composition that I like here.