Back Study by Michael Murtagh

Absolutely great work, especially for a 60 min sketch, admire your portfolio immensely, fabulous detail.

Great work, nice and relaxed.

Excellent Michael, I admire your skill with graphite.

Lovely study...try five mins. Poor model a pig of a position for her.

Thank you, everybody, for your kind comments! The pose didn't actually cause her too much difficulty, Sylvia. She was distracted by reading but I always make a point of arranging plenty of breaks for those kind enough to model for me, especially if they are amateurs. Least I can do!

Super sketch Michael. The tone and shading really bring out the shape and dynamics of the pose rendering the three dimensional effect. I would be interested to know why you omitted the head, maybe like me you started with an interesting shape (part of the body) and worked outwards from this leaving no time or space to complete. Nice to see some good life drawing, keep up the good work.

Hi, Robert! Life drawing/painting, along with portraiture, is most definitely my favoured artistic field of endeavour. I don't do enough of it, mainly due to lack of models and no classes locally at the moment. I find it a really challenging genre! This was only intended as a quick sketch, not a completed work, so I left the head off, both to cut down on the time spent doing it and partly to preserve the subject's anonymity. I often do this with friends/acquaintances who might be good enough to sit for me, as they can understandably be a bit sensitive about being identified when posted online! thanks very much for your kind comments!

I could have made a comment on any one of your portfolio but I do like back views even if some part of the anatomy is missing. I do that a lot. A cracking set of pictures.

That's high praise indeed, Stuart! thanks so mch!