I thought I would start with looking at some contemporary artists in the art of figure drawing and painting . The Jerwood prize-winning artists: Warren Baldwin and Roy Eastland
Warren Baldwin
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/large-portrait-2809
A portrait of a woman. Shades of blue and lilac harmonise with blue and white stripes of her top showing beneath the grey blue speckled jumper, and the skirt and what appears to be sheets or pillow case behind her.The background is grey pink and also speckled like the jumper and the whole is crossed behind the sitter by an orange brown board possibly the head of a bed. The figure looks down and to the left as her right leg is bent up into her hand. She looks relaxed in position and expression and cool by virtue of the colours. The image is overall peaceful as she appears to be engrossed in her thinking. This is a beautiful image not least because the sitter is mature.
Roy Eastland
https://royeastland.wordpress.com/category/portrait-drawing/
These are sensitive drawings of his mother done in silver point.
The OCA exercises and the artists Ingres, Degas and Matisse.
I have decided I would get more from looking at other artists if I actually tried to compare my efforts against their drawings:
Exercise one :drawing the human figure asks us to draw in a pencil medium several sketches of the figure.
Some of these I did at home, using my husband and myself as figures and some I did at life drawing class where the time for the drawing is limited and dictated by the tutor.
whenever I draw my husband he ends up with short limbs and large head.
Having read about the type of paper used by Seurat to produce his images, I made a fabric coated with emulsion which would give a lot of “graininess” to this image.
I have put these two images together in order to compare. My drawing has a lot of light from behind which puts the figure into shade, whereas Seurat has darkened the background so the attention is directed to the figure’s face and hands. I think the amount of detail in the two images are comparable, but Seurat’s deep dark crayon produces a much greater tonal contrast.
Exercise Two: Linear figure study
This asks to firstly locate the figure in space with a midtone fluid paint, to draw its main outlines and its surroundings.
“Once having put in the main outlines -look for negative space–perhaps a dark background. The page suggests either painting onto the midtone wash or retaining bold lines and paint the figure in blocked areas.”…….This I don’t understand…But it seems the aim is to keep the linear aspect of the image.
The first drawing was of the life model reclining. I wanted to make it very colourful but got carried away with yellows. In the subsequent painting, I dribbled the paint after deciding on the lines for the composition in experimenting with wet paint and don’t feel I achieved what the handbook was aiming at..
this drawing by Degas sourced on line (September 2014) fromhttp://www.browseanddarby.co.uk/preview?im=2107 gives me a little hope! His outlines are thick and the limbs almost appear different in length. There seems little finesse in the drawing (less than in mine) although his bold use of the drawing implement defines his confidence.
Dribbled paint and oil pastel on an oil resistant board.
Trying to follow the instructions in the handbook –I thought a more blocked appearance using different colours was how we were to depict the drawing in paint:
Figure with line and blocks of colour. It brings out the pose of the model against the background.
Other linear drawings or paintings with ink, done at life drawing class:
and linear study self portraits in ink. The class drawings are much more considered because of the presence of the rest of the class which, I think makes me try harder.
I have not touched on sketches which can be compared to those of Matisse. He has many drawings which are cartoon like, a face depicted by single lines giving character and mood with the use of the angle of the head, the shape of the eyebrows or mouth.
Head of a Woman by Henri Matisse 
Self Portrait1900
ink on paper
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg
1935
both images sourced on line September 2014 from:http://www.henri-matisse.net/drawings.html
playing with creativity 