Large-Scale Graphite Drawing: Keeping the Horse Soft

After weeks of working on a jockey drawing, I finally took it down and started something new for my collection. I wanted to draw this image because of the way those two figures sit together. The horse is right beside her. I like that feeling of closeness and I wanted to see if I could hold onto it in graphite. This is only my second large-scale drawing, so I'm still figuring out how to work at this size. I used to draw much faster. On stream I could finish a portrait in a couple of hours. This piece asks something different of me. The marks are larger, the forms take more time to build and I can't always tell right away whether a soft area is working. I started with a few light shapes just enough to place the woman and the horse on the page. At this stage everything is open. I can move everything around in my mind before I commit to the darker values. The face has a lot of details, and I wanted that to be where the eye settles. The horse needed to feel close to her, but I didn't want every edge to be equally sharp. That's where I got stuck. When I make a line sharp, it gives me something definite to work with. A soft edge is harder to judge. I built it gradually, stepped back and tried to see whether it feels like part of the form or just as much on the paper. I blended, looked at it from a distance, then came back and blended a little more. Some areas got too heavy, other areas lost the shape I wanted. I kept adjusting them, but after a while I couldn't really tell what the drawing needed. So I stepped for the day and went outside. The colors were beautiful, but what stayed with me was the way things changed with distance. Up close the edges were clear, further away they softened into each other. When I came back, I could see the horse differently. I let its shape stay soft and brought more details into her face. Then I used a kneaded eraser to lift out some of the light and bring the form forward again. I'm still learning how to work this large and I like that each drawing asks me to solve something new. This one is teaching me to let some parts stay quiet while others come forward. I'm still figuring out the scale. I think this is the part where I finally started to trust the softness.