This week at the figure drawing session at Studio b, instructor Heather Clements suggested that we draw the mirror image of the subject. This required us to transpose the figure in our minds, because we didn’t actually use mirrors. As usual, we drew a number of warm-up gesture drawings, and then some longer poses.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped drawing the mirror image — I’m sure it was a valuable exercise, but the process was boggling my mind. So to continue along the vein of thinking in reverse, I decided to reverse my procedure. I usually draw the shadows to define the form. Instead on this final pose, I drew only the lighted areas, using nearly-white Nupastel on gray paper. At the end, I used a little black Conte to define the form, leaving the gray paper to show through for the midtones.