Light and shadow

It’s been a long time since I drew someone from Reddit. This is Affectionate_Ad494, in a pose he titled Light and shadows. (What’s up with Reddit users with Something_Ad### name patterns?) I bumped into it one morning and was captivated by the play of contrasts and the way they highlighted his anatomy.

I had a life tragedy this week which cost me most of the time I would have spent detailing this work. Rather than abandon it, I decided to severely crop the work and polish his upper half. I don’t feel good about that decision — there was a lot of fascinating detail in his hands that would have been a valuable exercise to tackle — but I really did need to move on.

Near the end of my time with this piece, I started using some new pastel brushes I purchased from Lane Brown. They give the piece some nice texture, I think. It’s my first time buying brushes. I’ve pushed back on that in the past. But then I thought: physical artists have to experiment with and buy the tools they work with. Why shouldn’t I?