Mike Sibley   Comment Posted Dec.27th, 2012, viewed 144 times

I have one advantage, Wendy - my eyes will only be 65 in a few days :o)

I think you'd find drawing much easier if you break everything down into small manageable sections. This has less to do with time or controlling detail than it does with having that section live in your mind as a real form. I find that If I draw just a single lock of hair at a time, I can concentrate on it and better understand the way, for example, it emerges from the shade of the lock above, where the highlights appear as it curves, and occasionally I'll make an unintentional mark that suggests a split that I hadn't intended. Instead of seeing that as an error, a drawn line that wasn't supposed to be there, the trick is to see it as a gap that has suddenly appeared in the lock. Now it's fairly easy to understand how the edges of the lock react to it - maybe it curves down into the split, in which case it will show a thin highlight running down its length, and maybe the other side needs a tiny cast shadow - whatever is required to make that unintentional split into a realistic three-dimensional one.

I hope you had a good Christmas too. I did - and now I'm back at work again :o)