One recurring theme from the book which I'm following (Drawing for the Absolute and Utter Beginner) is the importance of practice, practice and practice. Every time I put another drawing down on paper I learn something new and so the more drawings that I do then the more I learn!
Today I decided to return to the exercise of directly copying an upside down picture with the intent of following lines fluently and accurately capturing the various angles and negative spaces. Moving on from owls, and other birds, a straightforward picture that the guide provides is this one of a chef (whom I imagine to be both high-strung and French):
The nice thing about this sketch is that, on closer examination, it contains a number of long, flowing lines which can be attempted in a single motion - such as the archetypal hat - and a number of definite shapes. So I worked my way down from his jacket collar (upside-down of course) and plugged in all of the details before spinning the page around to see how my very own chef looked:
Pleasingly I feel that this sketch really works with the face in particular both matching the original and appearing well proportioned in its own right. The hat is perhaps a little off centre, and the pony-tail doesn't quite convey a sense of "bound tightness", but the tilt of his head suggests a man who has street-cred in the kitchen to my mind. Or I could be reading too much into a simple picture!