From Richard Avedon's "In The American West"

Yesterday I took out some art books as references to draw from. It's hard finding somebody sitting still long enough to draw them. On my way over to the 42nd street library, I did a sketch of a sleeping girl on the ferry:



However, the weather's so cold that I don't want to go out unless I need to. This limits my choice of models to...my roommates.

So I took out two books on Richard Avedon. He's a photographer, and you're always warned not to work from photographs. But his photos are very detailed, black and white, and printed big. My thinking was they'd be very suitable for drawing from.

I also took out a copy of Disney's Pinnochio on VHS. Don't tell anybody, but nostalgia only goes so far...the backgrounds are beautiful, but who watches a movie for the backgrounds? The characters are very, very dull.

This is from a photo of Debbie McClendon, a 16 year old carnival worker. My first attempt was a little too doe-eyed.



This was my second attempt at the same photo: