Working up to a portrait

In lifedrawing, aka figure drawing, we normally start out doing gesture poses.  The traditional gesture pose is 1 minute, but I've done everything from a 5 second to a 5 minute.  Does 5 minutes count as a gesture?  It's hard to know where to draw the line between a gesture and a sketch.
Doing portrait gestures is an extremely valuable exercise.  Drawing the one-minute face, the three-minute, the five-minute.  The seven minute, which is definitely moving into being a sketch, not a gesture drawing.  Then moving on to a longer time.
Here are examples from yesterday.

First, the one minute face.  Done on my iPad, using the ArtRage app.  I routinely put about 75% of my gesture drawings in recycling, keeping the ones I like for reference.  Using the iPad instead  saves on paper.  Goodness  knows, just making the device left a big carbon footprint.  I need to do what I can to offset that.  Besides, how many pieces of paper can I have in my house before someone calls the fire marshall?

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Here is the three minute face.  There's a little bit of a likeness beginning to form.  Again, done on iPad.

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The five minute face.  Again on the iPad.  I managed to start bringing in some  lights and darks.  

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The thirty minute face.  I returned to traditional media for the longer piece.  This is charcoal and pastel on Ampersand pastelboard.  I enjoy seeing the progression.  I had not drawn Jodie G. in a very long time.  The likeness is not quite there yet.  I need to draw her several more times before a true likeness emerges.

I can draw a recognizable image of my husband without him being anywhere nearby.  We've been married 33 years.  Remember the song from My Fair Lady?  "I've grown accustomed to her face...."  Or, in this case, to his face.

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