Smoking Figure part 12

It's not likely to get much hotter this summer than it was today, but it's early enough in the season that we don't have much humidity yet, and the basement space that holds the Studio hasn't achieved that level of dampness that comes this time of year. Being the basement, it's relatively cool (despite lacking any air conditioning) so working conditions were actually pleasant. But before that, I took a walk to the center of my town to look into some references. I'm not satisfied with the building background I had drawn on the block last summer and decided to to try something else. The above photo was actually taken last year, but I wanted more information and details, so I brought a sketchbook and made some quick notations.

Before I could even start working on backgrounds, I had to deal with some more figure issues. Back last year there had been a comment or two about the size of the hand holding the cigarette. I determined that the size was fine, but I realized that the shape could be improved. I had taken a close up photo of the model's hand in the original pose, and had taken a few minutes earlier in the week to do a life size sketch of the hand on paper. I used that to make the adjustments shown in the above photo. Around the same time I used masking tape to consider changes to the lips. I'll probably keep the changes.

Another thing I played around with was the skirt. I felt that the area below the waist was slightly out of proportion to the upper body, and the tape and markers above show an improved version of those main lines.

As for the background building, I liked the projecting ledge of marble, which on the original building would be above the head of just about any adult. I moved it down in my version to be able to keep some of the window as a visual element, as well as to use the curved transition underneath the ledge as a contrast to all the verticals in that part of the composition. However, the resulting structure would have been very awkward for someone to lean against in that pose, so I started adding another projecting stone ledge around the level of the hips. Indications of these changes can be (just barely) made out the above photo, maybe a little better in the detail photos of the hand and skirt. I think it's more interesting than the simple vertical edge of brick wall that had been there. Molly was in the Studio for a little of the time I was there, but was not a fan of the changes, feeling that the resulting building did not look like a comfortable place to lean. And she may be right, so a more traditional straight wall may return, but with some different architectural elements and proportions than the previous version.

The current state of the block at the end of today's session. I hope to get it a little further along before the next critique.