Long Hair Sketch

I was given a challenge to draw hair this week so here is my outcome. It is a sketch of my daughter's hair which is very long and beautiful.

I am continuing to work on "painting with pencil" and hope this feels somewhat like a painting. I'm focusing on layer upon layer of colors in the drawing to achieve a bolder painterly feeling.  I find hair difficult to draw because I feel like I'm never done. It reminds me how I feel when I draw a tree with all its leaves...I want to keep drawing more and more and never quite feel like I'm finished which is frustrating to me.  I think my perfectionism tends to come out when drawing hair and trees. I had to finally just put down my pencils and say it's good enough because I kept seeing more shadows, colors and places to improve on.  I suppose I could spend days working on hair if I really wanted to perfect it but suppose this is good enough for now!

Standing back and taking in the drawing from a distance I think it "feels" like hair. What I mean is, it feels like I could put my hands into the hair and run my fingers through it. So I do like that effect.  I also like the color of the yellow bow against the golden tones of the hair - the bow has a soft rich color that lays nicely on the hair. What I feel I could improve on is the bottom of the hair.  I feel it doesn't have a nice tapered off look to the ends of the hair and instead just looks a little choppy. 

As I contemplate what to draw next week I think I'll continue with parts of the body since that has been my theme for the past 3 weeks.  Keeping personal goals in sight I'm just happy I'm drawing on a regular weekly basis.  I'll be posting something new next week!