Plumb Lines And Horizontal Lines

When I was drawing last night, plumb lines were very helpful. What I figured out was that when I am drawing and looking for relationships or reference points, I mostly look close by in the vicinity of where I am drawing. Using plumb lines helped me see that I needed to broaden my focus. For today's drawing practice, I continued to use both plumb lines and horizontal lines.

Today, I scheduled time to draw in public. While work is crazy busy, I was lucky enough to be near the Como Zoo at one point due to a client meeting and I used my lunch time to draw for about an hour. Up until now, my favorite animals to draw are the ones which are sleeping, but now I have another favorite. When I arrived today, it was feeding time for the giraffes. People can line up to feed a giraffe. What that means is that there is an animal who keeps returning to the same position over and over and over again. It's perfection!  I get to practice on something that is moving, but that is also predictable.

Rather than warming up, I just started drawing. I like this sketch the best. The dashed lines helped me compare my proportions and the relative position of things. I even wrote "pretty good", since I do think this was pretty good.

The curved line on the right is carry over from a different drawing. The same thing happened in the following sketch. There's some extra stuff form on the right hand side. This is a snow leopard. I didn't try to go for detail, but the dashed lines, again, were very helpful to figure out how close I was to his actual form. I reworked his paw, face, and back a bit to get it closer.

In the last week or so, my practice sessions have felt more useful and productive. This happened after a period where I was feeling stuck and frustrated. That seems to be a pattern. It feels like I am going backwards. If I keep pushing, many times I'll get a mini-breakthrough.