Bargueing right into things.

So far, I'm far better at making tacky puns than I am at creating artwork. I am working rather hard to change that though. What I really want is to become a far better painter than I am right now. By all accounts, one of the best ways to improve your paintings is to improve your drawing skills. At school, it's simply a matter of staking out an area in the cast hall and going to work on it. At home however, I am quite limited. So I'm doing the next best thing. I'm doing master copies of cast drawings. These drawing plates were created by Charles Bargue and were used for this purpose way back in the 19th century. They are widely used in traditional training and are quite a handy tool.
The main idea is to improve my own ability to judge distances, angles, shapes and values more accurately. This is done by providing instant feedback on the accuracy of my choices. In other words, I guess at it...then I measure it and correct myself. You'll see me using this idea in other projects as well. This can be a bit tedious and mechanical but, this is about sharpening my skills rather than creating a beautiful drawing.
So, here's my first update. It's not the only iron I have in the fire this weekend, so next week I might end up posting something completely different. Like maybe an introduction or an explanation of why I have started a blog....