100 Heads: Head #39

I am practicing pen & ink contour drawing, as explained in the book Painting by Design by Charles Reid. This is not blind contour drawing. I look at my paper as necessary. My goal is to get the proportions correct and to capture interesting shapes and angles. Anita Davies has talked about lead-free drawing and how not erasing helps you see your drawing strengths and weaknesses. I am finding this to be definitely true.

I experimented with pencil shading on the top contour drawing and pen shading on the bottom drawing.

I drew from a Julia Margaret Cameron photograph of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. You can see the photograph here.

Contour drawing is fast, so I can do a contour drawing even on days I am tired or pressed for time.