Drew a beautiful friend I met in figure drawing class. It's easy to make it look good when starting out with a face like hers. At last I've put in the final finishing touches and I'm pretty happy with it. 

I've had a few practice runs with this paper, but this is my first real project using toned paper. This supposedly makes the process faster by providing the middle tone to start with. That way we can move outward from there adding not only black, but the extra fun part of adding white. It's cool to see this middle tone blend in between the transitions. Deciding what to do with the background is a lot of fun too; I leveraged it to create the most value contrast with light against the dark side of the face and vise-versa.  

This is a better representation of the real Jesi; Always cracking up—usually laughing at herself. It's tough to keep it together when you've got a camera in your face! …or in this instance, your face in your face. 

Below is most of the class critique lineup. One of the models that had come in that day—who looked like a gruff Harley dude (funny to see him surrounded by the art school setting)—complimented the class saying he's never been around so many great artists. We had the option of using red or black; I don't see the appeal in drawing with red simply because you can't get as wide of a value range. There's a lot of amazing work up there nevertheless. We've all grown a lot since the first day!