Today, in a life drawing session in Paris, I tried to draw the model as a mermaid. It was the longest pose, so I had 25 minutes to do that. It was really a fun exercise! (for the trivia, she was reading a book on the ground. That's why the mermaid is looking so intensely at the shellfish ^^)

Sketches from video.

So this one was struggle city for me in the beginning haha. Before even starting the first part of this long pose, it took me two whole days to push past the mental barrier (or fear of failing if you will) to even commit charcoal to paper. I can say I'm happy with what I've been able to achieve here, though the part of my drawing that bothers me the most is the undersized outstretched left foot. As Patrick mentions in a later lesson "there's nothing more insecure in a drawing than small feet" haha, and it shows here so watch out for that. I've started taking progress photos along the way so I can document the stages of the drawing, here I'll include the very first rough alongside the finished states. This is one of the difficult points I'm finding in my "artistic journey", how to visualise from the "ugly", rough stage of the beginning to (hopefully) coming to an end that will be aesthetically pleasing to the viewer. Once again great exercise here, challenging in more ways than one!