In our ninth class, we learned about portraits. Our instructor pointed out that, while portraits are, in many ways, as complex as the entire figure, having a little knowledge can help add just a small amount of detail to a figure study which improves the result.
Most of the class seemed to think this was the hardest class, but since I was also taking two other classes with lots of focus on the face, I felt much more confident.
We spent the first half of the class quickly attempting to capture the model’s head and face (she stayed clothed to enforce discipline!). Then the second half we drew the whole figure.
