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Whenever we had a live model with long hair that covered part of the neck or shoulders (and believe it or not, "Richard's" was the longest of anyone's), we'd invariably ask him or her at some point to brush the hair back and leave it for a little while, so that we could correctly place the underlying anatomical features. Then the hair could be brought back to its original "drape" and drawn or painted, in confidence that the anatomy that we could no longer see was in fact right where it belonged. Obviously if you're working from a photograph, you're constrained in this regard, which is why it's so important to do as much drawing from life as possible, even if your primary resource is photography.
Daniel Greene tells a story that I haven't figured out yet how to use, but I'm working on it. He was doing a pastel of a young woman in a long dress and he was having trouble getting her posture and gesture right, and finally he asked the woman (a professional model) if she would pose nude so that he could get the anatomy right. She did, he did, and then the dress was painted over the correct anatomy. I suspect that you'd have to be an artist of Greene's stature to pull this off, so to speak. I mention it only in passing.
Steven
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