Vitruvian Fine Art Studio: Beginning Figure Drawing

So I sort of think of this as my first "big girl" drawing (big girl as in adult, not large). It's what came out of my first class at the Vitruvian Studio. We spent the entire 8 weeks (3 hours per class) creating one drawing, learning to measure carefully and fill in the detail slowly. I loved it. I knew I was going to love it when the instructor said in the first class that while gestures and short poses are typical of figure drawing, how can you draw quickly when you don't know how to draw slowly? This is exactly what I felt I was struggling with the most (I'm still trying to understand gesture drawing) so this method was perfect for me. I'm really happy with this drawing -- I even hung it up in my newly created (as in I cleared all our crap out of the office) studio space as a representation of an official starting point. It was one of my goals for this year to create a drawing that I'm happy with, so it's heartening to have already accomplished that. It makes me feel like this path might be possible after all. So take that all you people who say I'm never going to like anything I do!

Now. The next goal is to regularly create drawings I like, and keep improving. I'm still completely unhappy with everything that comes out of my regular figure drawing sessions, so I'm trying to practice more at home and get the hang of gesture draiwing and shorter poses (using photos, which isn't optimal, but I'm working with what I've got). I'm also taking the Drawing Basics class at Vitruvian, which focuses on the fundamentals of line, shading and form with simple still life drawings. I took a couple of fundamentals classes in college, but I wasn't really focused on drawing then, so I don't think I really got a lot out of them. So, here's to progress -- upwards and onward!