The male has been cropping up in my drawings.
On reflection is this male a counter weight to the female or just a very natural progression? Perhaps it is more interesting to think about why I havnt bothered with the male before now. Well I never saw the use for him, while the body shape naturally became female (and what do I know about the male?)

Of course now, as I open up my practice to an element of the narrative, which may well involve more than one character, the male had to happen.

If a central concern is mortality (and I have recently given in to this as a truth) then why confine it to the female image unless I decide to have her represent the human/life. Its an idea I have played with since her development, and after I attempted to destroy her, which was really about seeing just how far I could push the image visually before the form became lost and meaningless to the viewer- too abstract in all aspects-it was clear that I was happier with this newly emerged, mostly developed female body form.

But is there a real need for him in my practice now? What does this male give to the female and is there any interplay there at all? I have always been of the mind that if it doesnt need to be there throw it out, not a fan of clutter and over the past year I have applied this to the work, on the other hand perhaps the male needs more development time, the female took two years for me to develop, clearly the male has come to me fully formed as an off shoot from the female in terms of his rendering so I have had much less time to figure out what part I want him to play.

Looking at the drawings it seems that she is far to engrossed in her own situation to notice the male, to acknowledge his existence at all. Dont read to much into that, she has always been isolated within her situation.

Don Juan in Hell-Baudelaire
When Don Juan had descended to the waves
Of Hell, and given coin for Charon’s chores,
A beggar with Antisthenes’ proud gaze
Took an avenger’s grip around the oars.

A great stone man, stiff in his uniform,
Was the stem helmsman on that gloomy run,
But our calm hero, bent upon his sword,
Stared at the wake, and gave his glance to none.

So above are a couple of drawings from yesterday, just playing with the idea of the male, the forms differences and similarities to the female and how the two could, or will relate to each other. I certainly don’t feel the need to push the male to his limits as I once did the female, I am now in a place in my practice where I am more concerned with the female/male playing out the themes of mortality and human emotional and physical connections and psychological states.

I am very aware that I have not answered my own question. (blogging can be a dangerous pass time for me)

PS
I have talked allot on this blog about the development of the female form-here’s an example of her starting point~toes!

2006-graphite on paper
As ever, comments are encouraged.