oh wow!!! Visited your site Constance, your work is amazing

Good work as usual Constance. That figure pose is unusual and challenging the flexibility of the human body makes it the pre-eminent subject for artists. Learn everything you can about edges it will make a big difference to your figure drawing.

It is easier to explain in pictures I hope you don’t mind me posting a couple?

In my art group we were discussing lines but you can’t talk about lines without discussing edges and it was easier to do a demo with glass than talking about line and edges. I’ll post it below.

The support we draw or paint on is a flat plane and if you have a single weight line drawing it reminds us of that flat plane if you want to turn that plane into a window you have to put in some visual cues. Its all trickery that works we see the flat plane as a window into a 3D world, edges play a role in that illusion along with perspective, overlapping shapes and size variations.

Edges are where two things or planes meet.
Edges can be:
Soft
Hard
Fuzzy
Lost
and with Line
thick
thin
It depends on the light.

Here you can see how single weight outline kills any sense of depth. By varying the line and thinking about edges the figure moves from a flat shape into 3D form.

You can see the powerful effect of changing the edges in the glass and bottle below. Have a good look at the glass below and analyse the ingredients, abstract light and dark lines/shapes that individually mean nothing but together create a convincing illusion. Hope that clarifies edges in drawing for you.

Ignore the single line outlines they are only there to demonstrate how they destroy form and the illusion of depth. The bottle is there to show how powerful understanding edges can be, figures, because of their complexity are harder to understand. I found showing people how to draw glass bottles etc easier to show what edges do because they think its something quite difficult and are surprised how easy it really is once they understand the how.

If Constance was to redraw the Croquis Cafe figure again being aware of the edges this time she will notice the improvement that knowing about edges can bring to a drawing.

I like both sketches. The way you are going after the form in the first (especially in the feet) and the portrait is beautifully sensitive.

Yes! Bill should do a series! Come on Bill!

Bill’s work is excellent, and I too would like a series.

Constance, you have multiple kinds of lines in your portrait. The proportions in the figure are good and it’s expressive. It’s a great sketch. I always hesitate to mess with a great sketch, but sometimes the result is powerful. Sometimes I copy a great sketch like yours and mess with different ways to take the next step. That way I don’t loose the great sketch I love.

Kate