Drawing of Nicole

This is one of my latest figure drawings.

I've been trying to speed up in my drawings (ie: do one, and sometimes more than one, drawing per session). In fact, if I remember correctly, this is one of three drawings I did that night. I executed the drawing in charcoal, and I recall wanting to add colour to it, but not being quite sure how or where to do it, so I left it as-is. I don't like to shy away from trying something difficult, but on the other hand, sometimes I want to leave with a "decent" drawing that hasn't been destroyed by too much media (which is how I usually ruin my drawings).

I'm trying to learn how to add only the essential coloring: ie: the barest minimum to give the effect of colour and dimension, but without (necessarily) colouring the entire thing from corner to corner.

Oh yeah: the face in this one was actually a somewhat new way of working for me: I didn't shoot for replicating the model's features, just blocked in the shadows as accurately as possible. I think it worked out better than some of my drawings in which I go after the features with more detail. Obviously, I could take this drawing a lot farther (and I'm considering re-working some of my figure drawings that I don't think quite stand alone in the future), but it's a decent start for me.