Figure Drawing - how stay focused on longer poses?

I always struggle with longer poses. Quick sketches aren't ideal but I feel like I know what to do. When I get to ten minutes I feel like I'm going in circles and only making the drawing worse. Any advide on how to take my time?

I'd love to hear any generall critiques and tips ^^

Welcome abaord, Noku.

Say, you're doing a mighty swell job on your fluid poses and gestures, but these forms and relationships and spaces, in my mind all seem a bit too rushed, because you seem a bit too impatient with yourself and your poses. How would you like to please do your first ever 1 hour class mode, therefore, on the longer drawings, please measure out the head lenghts with your pen and fingers?

As a result, your understanding of relationships will become more masterful with each new attention paid to each proportion and angle of your figure bodies.

Good luck to you.

P.S. Please pick up a copy of Andrew Loomis' Figure Drawing for All It's Worth as a free PDF here!

Could you share a picture or timelapse of your 10 min studies in different stages of progress? 1min in 4min in etc. Are you losing focus or do you not know what to do?

10 minutes stops being a gesture and at that point, it's a figure study. you can do a quick light underdrawing for a minute or so but after that you should be refining facial features and hands and basic shading should all be present in a longer drawing like this. Also, this brush isn't working for you. Try on with opacity or thinner lines.

You need to slow down there are too many erroneous lines you can take some time to actually look at the figure for a moment before hopping in.

Those are just my clif notes if you need more detail refer to the link Chef posted above.

Noku,

Try slowing down and working with less sketchy lines. Clean shapes make a huge difference; make shapes within shape within shape.

Did you know You can shade with shape, and we often forget this and often admire it when others do it.

If you feel the shapes are as clean as you can make them at the seven-minute mark, then start to fill them in, in greyscale. Focus on light as you fill them in, and you will be surprised at what you can accomplish.

All the best,

JCML Fine Art