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Patricia,
Your drawing sessions sound a lot like the one I attend. I usually concentrate on just the head and shoulders when the pose allows for it. Unfortunately, a lot of the longer poses are reclining poses: kind of hard to do a portrait study when the model is supine at an odd angle! But the others at the session are usually agreeable if I ask for a ten minute pose with the model seated facing the artists.
Like others, I've been investigating Tony Ryder's drawing methods. His "envelope, contour, inside" method is designed for producing beautiful finished drawings. In his book he mentions that he spends an average of 36 hours on a drawing of high quality. I find that I can't get an "envelope" completed accurately in 5-10 min.
I've been using forum member Lon Haverly's "Line First" technique, which was designed for rapid rendering of the subject. It gives you a disciplined way of proceeding, so, for starters, you don't waste any time wondering how to begin. Check out the posts on this topic on the forum, or get his book, which is a lot of fun in any case.
One of the participants in our sessions has started doing outline drawings and very lightly indicating shadow contours. Then during model breaks she washes in the shadowing with sepia. She does the outlines with a water soluble pencil that is a close match to the sepia. The sepia wash goes on very fast, and the results are impressive. I'm thinking of trying it myself. I hope some of this helps.
John
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