Tense Up Again!!

I never like to draw/paint these beautiful young hunks/gales often offered in the public studios. They are good for studying how to draw/paint human anatomy convincingly. They just don't interest me. This young man posed twice last week. He has excellent physique and posed in heroic poses. When I painted in oil using a discarded "experienced" board, I was able to stay loose. It is not particularly a good picture and I didn't learn much in the process. I did play with non-realistic flesh tone. You can click on the picture to see some of it. At least I stick to the purpose of my exercise. The second picture of a charcoal drawing is a failure. I tried to get into the detail middle tone variations. I tensed up. The picture is "dead". I didn't enjoy much either. Perhaps next time I should just use the pose as a point of departure for an abstract or semi-abstract painting/drawing instead of describing what I see. My mantra: Stay loose.

I find my "point and shoot" camera does not do a good job. The flesh tone color variation is quite a bit richer than what is shown. Time to invest in a good SLR camera?