Squiddly and Diddly

This is a cast drawing in graphite on Lanaquarelle hard pressed watercolor paper. A cast drawing is an exercise in learning how to render very convincingly so the forms turn beautifully. Most classical atelier students do at least one of these projects. This one took me about 3 1/2 months. I think the original sculpture I chose was of the Three Graces, which is a fairly common subject in art. But one of my graces broke off. So there was just the two of them and I named them Squiddly and Diddly. You get pretty attached after spending so long with them. If you should venture to take on one of these projects, it is a long time with tiny, little strokes, especially when doing the background which takes hours and hours. You may start dreaming in gray. And my arm developed a peculiar knot where a muscle got tweaked out. But it went back to normal after a while.