In Profile

I have always struggled when drawing profiles, the mouth especially, so this is the image I decided to work from today.

This time I managed to get the proportions of the head right (the distance from the face line to the back of the head should equal the distance from the mouth to the top of the head).  I used a charcoal pencil this time to mark in the mouth, eye, ear and nose and then continued to work with soft pastels.

The position of the ear isn't right in this inital stage drawing.  It should sit level with the eye so needs to come down a little.  More work needed on the hair and shadowing under the chin and also need to do more to show the contours of the face.

I am more or less happy with this so will call it 'finished'. I know if I keep fiddling with it then I could lose what I've achieved. I think there is more of a likeness to the person in the photograph this time which is encouraging. Definitely happy with the shadow areas. Pastels are great to work with - you can blend colour so well with them. I switched to pastel pencils in the latter stages and used a tortillon to blend. The ear was a real challenge! Much harder to do than the mouth.