From my sketchbook....

bored one day and did these, a jewel box, a bottle of white out and a lamp:

Pencil on Paper

Light and Shadow

This week we focused on the study of light and shadow. Trying again to pull us away from the 'outline then fill it in' technique we instead color a page of newsprint entirely with charcoal then use our erasers to pick out the light areas, focusing on shapes, then using charcoal to deepen the shadows.

I loved this exercise. And in answer to one student's lament: 'i just want to complete one pose please', the prof had the model remain in one pose, with several breaks, for the duration of the class. I was able to complete 2 drawings in the time (3hrs). Again, the teacher pointed out my issues with proportion but, and i'm quite proud to say, was really pleased with my work (he held it up for others to see!! the equivalent to putting it on the fridge door lol).

Compressed charcoal on newsprint

Gesture Drawings!!! (warning, this is a long one)

Ok, I had heard this term but didn't really understand what it is. According to Wikipedia (and my prof) it's:

...the practice of drawing a series of poses taken by a model in a short amount of time, often as an exercise with which to begin a life drawing session. The model may hold a pose for a few seconds or several minutes. More generally, a gesture drawing may be any drawing which emphasizes action or movement.

The point, according to my prof, is to help us, relax and open up our drawing more. He feels (and I agree) that as a class we are too tight, too focused on details. That we are too locked into drawing the outline precisely then immediately filling in detail. So this class was all about gesture drawings.

I had a hard time with this. With understanding what he really wanted from us. We started with 1 minute poses and the classes nearly had a heart attack. We'd barely put pencil to paper when the model moved. So he lengthened the time to 2 minutes. Here are the results:

Compressed charcoal on newsprint

He had us work with the flat side of the charcoal as opposed to the point to help keep the drawings loose and, well, gestural. He then reduced the time back to 1minute:

I got tired of using the flat side of the charcoal so snuck in one using the point:

Next, he had us pick a carrot (yes the vegetable) poured us each a measure of ink and had us continue with 2 min poses using the carrot dipped in ink. Why? I guess to throw us off a bit more, stretch our thinking and eye and technique. It was interesting. Messy but fun:

The final exercise had us sketching as the model moved slowly from pose to pose. This was the hardest bit for me. I struggled to complete several drawings on a page quickly, a full sketch for each pose:

This isn't really what he wanted from us. He explained he was looking more for a Vitruvian Man type of image, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man Oh well, maybe next time.

Lucretia part deux

So, I've returned to Lucretia. I didn't work on her too much cuz really i haven't been in the mood. I extended her arm a bit (i've got a problem with proportions, I'm workin on it) and worked on the shadows under her uplifted arm a bit. I need to go back to this at a later date but for some reason I can't wrap my head around her just yet and don't wanna force it

Pencil on Paper