The runway nude

This nude I drew at a workshop in Richmond-Upon-Thames in England in 2003. It's a half-hour pose. The model was about 40 years of age and well-preserved in the midriff and legs. Perhaps she did not own a car and walked a lot. She also had shaved a "runway" into her pubic hair which, at the angle I was drawing her, and with her tight tummy, gave prominence to her pubic mound. I wanted to capture this, and paid attention to getting right the proportions of her legs, pelvic and stomach areas. It was particularly sensitive getting the almost 90-degree angle of her left inner thigh without the use of the plumb-line that John Singer Sargent always recommended an artist should have handy for drafting a drawing. At this stage, I had only a few months' experience of life-drawing, and I had some progress to make on chiaroscuro. I also left too little time to attend to a vital element, her hair. It should have been sketched in with wavy lines instead of heavily hatched in a lifeless way. But I have to admit that in spite of its obvious evidence of inexperience, I like the way this nude leaps off the page. Her right forearm is brave, and her lower body is wonderful --- except for the truncated right foot, of course.