Lauren posed for four weeks in January. Normally this would translate to 20 three-hour sessions for a full time student. I got about eight sessions with this pose. I started with a very loose block in the first session, then started a second block in for the next session, and then transferred that block in to a clean piece of paper for the third session. This approach has its pros:

• One can draw very freely and more easily maintain the gesture while learning the pose.
• One can take risks and make changes without worrying about damaging the paper in a way that will hurt the final drawing.
• Doing multiple block ins from scratch really helps in seeing and learning the pose.

and its cons:

• The extra block ins take up time that could be used for rendering.
• When you transfer the block in to another sheet of paper, you almost always lose subtle visual cues that give the drawing life and cohesion.

I wasn’t very happy with the drawing at the end of the last session, but it has grown on me and it looks great in the photo.