Live Model Drawing Session

My local CPSA district chapter (219) had our monthly meeting this past Saturday and we had a special treat! The meeting theme was portraits and one of our members brought in a live model so we could all sit and draw together. It's been a long time since I've worked from a live model - I love my photo references, but it was fun. I really enjoyed the pure drawing time. I wish I had spent some time doing quick gestural sketches, but since we were focusing on portrait, and the model wasn't moving or trying different poses, it didn't really make sense to do them.

So, here's our lovely model, her name was Nafshiyah:


I started with a warm-up sketch in graphite:



And then I decided to try my colored pencils… which is a little tough given that colored pencil doesn't really erase - it's more of commitment:


This is a little test I threw together in photoshop - an overlay of my second drawing and my reference photo. Looks pretty good! I impressed myself!! But I can see I've made the eyes too large, plus low and to the right (set back on face) - which led to a displaced ear (also too low and set back), but it appears to be approximately the right size. Which is funny because one of the members walking through the session commented that she thought it might be too small. ;)