Sister Psyke is giving me gyp...

Heya', everyone. Well, I've been poking along with Sister Psyke and after a great deal of banging my head against the wall, I believe I finally have a handle on this drawing. Actually, that isn't entirely fair. I've been tremendously busy this last little while and I never really had the two or three hours to string together a formal assault on this drawing idea. Thing is, the concept sounded pretty easy at the beginning but as I went on I wanted this to be bigger or that to be smaller or something else to be something other than it was, but these are not within the ability of the artist to change. Thusly, we enter this week's lesson...or journal entry, possibly. So, once I've got a grip on the details of the subject, I try mussing about with roughs and layout. With Sister Psyke I tried having her swooping up and over the statue of Atlas and the drawing being of her caught at the apex of her arc, so she could be all laid back and...other things that mean laid back but aren't spelled the same way due to being different words. Relaxed, possibly. :) Anyway, I was doing this when another drawing idea hit me for another character so I scribbled it in the bottom corner. This pose did not please me so I went on to another page with a more straight-forward take on the idea of her in front of the statue. After a couple pages and many interruptions I ended up with the second pose. Satisfied with this result I moved on to the statue of Atlas. I wanted to understand how the statue worked in terms of load bearing and ballance before I got involved with the final drawing, so I drew it from one angle, wasn't pleased with it so moved to doing a skeleton, then another skeleton which I bulked up with "muscles". Once more I felt satisfied with this and moved on to doing the final drawing. To start with, I drew a box around the rough which had the same proportions as the final drawing surface and then I drew a double cross hairs on both the rough and the final workspace. Like a '+' and an 'X' meeting at the crosspoint. This is a little trick I discovered (though I'm sure this is an *ancient* trick; I lay no claim nor do I wish to plant a flag here) and it helps to keep the picture ballanced as well as make sure the translation from rough to final is faithful. Now I have started the final and I'm working on the dark feathers of Sister Psyke's wings and will procede, top-left to bottom-right. I'll do the statue of Atlas later, possibly with a harder pencil in to order to keep the tones lighter, giving the illusion of distance. I hope. If anyone has any ideas, comments or suggestions (help is good) please feel free to drop a line. Talk to y'all soon. -Dave

Oh, as an afterthought, I really *must* thank Sonia for being both patient and such an easy volunteer to work with. She dutifully pointed at various body parts so that I knew where they were. This might sound silly for someone who has taken many years of life drawing, but I've been drawing comic bood women for the last six or seven years, which means I have a slightly skewed vision of where certain bones are on your standard, everyday woman. For those who haven't heard this dozens of times already, it's so very important to know how things work in reality if you're going to draw them in *un*reality. Remain your most excellent selves. -Dave