Not exactly Gil Elvgren

This week’s Love Life Drawing study group task was to find an unfamiliar style of reference, something that uses edges in a way you haven’t tried, and attempt to replicate it. I chose a work from one of the pin-up art books I’ve been collecting recently. In this case, Shell Game by one of the real masters of pin-up, Gil Elvgren. Mine is a pale shadow of the original, of course, but it was a fun learning exercise making it. He squeezed in some remarkably minute detail, which I was simply unable to match. But the sort of soft-focus figure work I think comes through pretty well, and it was a fun challenge to let go of my instinct for perfect lines.

This concludes the edges & marks month for the study group. Next month is a topic many artists dread, including myself: hands. Somewhere out there, an evil voice is laughing.