Drawing- the foundation of art

My mother, who painted under the sobriquet FAAF, was an excellent draftswoman. She drew the head of the man when she was an art school student. (Note the correctly positioned ear her teacher sketched in on the upper right.)

Feeling a little lost with my current drawing and painting, I tried to sketch tonight's thirteen year old model in the classical tradition, an approach foreign to me as a student. Then I began a painting, which although somewhat rough, succeeds in capturing the ambiguity of this interesting young girl not only poised somewhere between a child and adult, but also between lad and lassie. I spent about an hour each on the drawing and the painting.

I painted Zoë in oils two years ago- picture below.