Smoking Figure part 13

Put in a little more time on my smoker today. My plan was to work on the background, but the more I thought about it, the less sure I was of what I want to do. The building that I had been looking at as a model has a mix of white stone work below and brick at the window level. I can do that, but I have to consider how those play against the figure in terms of both rhythm and value. (I'm cutting this as a black and white print, so value will have to serve all the functions that color otherwise might) And what I will do with the window and other wall details will have to wait until I have a clear idea about the brick and/or stone. So other than redrawing some of the brick patterns that I had erased a few weeks ago, I put off the building question for at least another day.

Instead I gave a little more thought to the figure. At the last critique, one of our regulars mentioned that he thought that the figure's arms were not the same size. Another regular said she was of two minds about that, but had decided for herself that she was fine with how it was drawn. I said I'd give it a look later, and today was that day. Everything seemed fine with the forearms, but I came to the conclusion that the upper arm on the left was just a little shorter than the one one on the right. The problem seemed to be that the shoulder was too low compared to the other one. Using masking tape and a marker, I made a slight adjustment to the one on the right, adjusting its slope just slightly downward. On the left I used considerably more tape, raising the slope of the whole shoulder, and bringing the upper arm up a little in the process. The version above is the equivalent of a very rough sketch, but it seems a bit more logical, so something it will end likely end up in the final version.