Today we began Life Drawing!
(All drawings were drawn using a 3b pencil with varying degrees of sharpness)
We began with a 10 minute full body sketch focusing on structure. It was a nice warm up. It was important to consider the muscle tone and bones so I focused on his ribs, his elbows and knees, places where his bones were more prominent. His leg muscles and arms were easy in comparison to his stomach – because he’s got a realistic body, (not a chiselled six pack) we had to consider a different sort of structure, where the muscle tone was and where there was more flesh and which parts of the body it rested on like the ribs or the hips.
It would have been interesting to work on the face and feet more because of course the bone structure is far more complex but I didn’t give myself enough time.
The body as a whole is a fascinating structure and It was great to observe how everything worked to create the pose, where the weight was held etc.
The next task focused on one part of the body of our choice. We had 10 minutes to draw it oversized. It was an easy option to pick hands or feet because I’d drawn these several times. Instead, following on from concentrating on the underlying structure of his torso, I focused on his middle again, but this time close up. Although i’m not comfortable with drawing details like nipples or genitals I felt pleased I was able to focus enough to get a result. One of the most challenging parts was placing the bellybutton in a correct spot; judging the size and extrusion of his belly to the right degree based on my observations.
It was time to focus on the full form with a single fluid line – 10 minutes.
This was difficult – mainly because there was a hand involved and also because I wanted to draw in my normal style where I use very repetitive pencil strokes. I had to be firm with myself and stop doing that, focusing instead on the fluidity of form.
I’m not too happy with this, I don’t think it’s fluid enough, I think I need to let go with the drawing a little and interpret it more freely.
The 30 minute work saw us drawing the body but focusing on detail, and making special focus on feet which can get missed off and are of course, fiddly!
So to combat this I started from the feet upward which although it didn’t mean I had enough time to add in too much detail, everything seems rather proportionate and at least he now HAS feet, unlike my other drawings.
Retrospectively, should I ought to try drawing from the feet upwards often?
After a break we set about drawing with our sub-dominant hand for 10 minutes, with no particular focus except accuracy I suppose. Aargh! It makes your brain hurt when you want your hand to do something and it can’t!!
(apologies about the scan quality, it’s suffered)
Next our piece focused on volume, drawing on what we did a while ago – using circles and bands and wave forms to represent volume.
I like drawing this way, the results are interesting because once you add detail it magically comes alive! It makes sense.
(again, sorry for the scan quality)
Then we did a 10 minute exciting action pose which provided another challenge – perspective. The stick he was holding was closer to me than he was. It was quite difficult, more than I expected. I tried my best however to represent it. His hand was also a challenge – his fingers were in a difficult position and I just couldn’t get it right! (howls in anger!)
Next! Model moving around the room? Told to stop in a different pose? We draw it? That’s alright. How long is the pose? We don’t know!
Now that was something we weren’t expecting! (it gets so exciting around here! 😉 )
It was actually more like observational studies in the real world, because you never know how long your model is going to stay still for.
We did a 15 minute sketch of the full body next, focusing on hands and feet and by the end of this I was not a happy bunny! I couldn’t get the result I wanted at all! Maybe I need to draw it bigger next time… this is interesting because usually I’m happy with drawing very small, but now maybe my drawing style has changed.
Well! That’s it for today – tune in next time for more Life Drawing! (exit to the Star Trek Theme)
dddmiriamfox 