Stavrinos Revisited

I joined a Yahoo group about the artwork of George Stavrinos, and in one of the posts in the message list was a link to an eBay auction of an original Stavrinos piece from an Estee Lauder ad. While the face wasn't what I loved best about Stavrinos, the shading was. He had such an amazing sense of chiaroscuro, and especially in his ore stylized later work before he died, a great sense of when to leave out full shading, which really highlighted the amazing technique he had for fleshing out faces, fabrics and figures. Inspired by that (as well as looking again at my "Visions" book on his art) I tried channeling him again. I didn't really draw from a model or photo, and as I started flshing out the face, that was my downfall. I really prefer to draw from my own head, because then it's all mine. But I also know Stavrinos used a lot of references (most, I believe, he even took photos of himself), so I thought I'd try and mimic his technique more and see what I could learn. Unfortunately, I don't have his shading down anymore (if I ever did), so while I like the nose, everything else is just a regular pencil drawing in my mind. Enh, I guess it's okay... Still, it was fun to draw in pencil again. I even opened up my drafting table to do so! I really need to do more natural media again.