Life Drawing focussing on balance poses

I found todays drawings quite difficult to do as some of the poses were very unusual and the body was contorted in strange shapes. This made it hard to capture a realistic impression of how the body looked.

Today was very cold and we took the life drawing session outside. Sadly my hands were far too cold to  draw so the later drawings are very disappointing. I must take gloves next time!!

Some more Life Drawing to Figure Drawing

Firstly the Life Drawings....

And then the Figure Drawings using the same poses....



I feel that I captured the material of the clothes in these sketches well, more so with the ink drawings as I could work faster. The charcoal drawings took more time and were quite messy so I don't think they look as good. I need to get more of the environment in the sketches as this will give the figures more context.

Life Drawing to Figure Drawing

Today we watched an old film called The Third Man. Our Life Model then matched poses that were in the film, firstly without clothes so we could get an idea of how the body naturally works when creating these movements.

Our Life Model then did the same poses but this time clothed. We also drew outside so we could incorporate some interesting backgrounds into our drawings. It was interesting to see how much the image changed when clothing is used and it's put in a setting.

I found it hard to work fast enough so that I got all the details of the life model and the surroundings into the sketch. Maybe if I worked smaller...thumbnail size then I would be able to get more of what I can see in the sketch.

I took one of the poses we sketched today and made it into an illustration. It's very useful to have a 'bank' of all of these different poses, you never know when one is going to come in handy. I liked playing around with the pose and putting clothing on the figure, and working out what worked and what didn't. Also moving the limbs so that they look right for the composition was interesting, but I think this has worked well.

Life Drawing - Action Poses

 

I did some life drawing using action poses and created my pages in a journalistic style, using Graphite Crayon, Conte and Ink Brushes in a few colours.
Each drawing of each pose were very quick drawings. Mostly 3 minute drawings. This meant that I had less time to think about each little mark I made and instead just had to get as much of the pose on the paper as quickly as I could. I think this was a good strategy as it was a much more expressive and a definite way of working, each mark I made counted.

 

 

 

Creating work in a journalistic style fills the page and makes them interesting and exciting to look at, especially when drawing action poses. It demonstrates a lot of movement and it is very expressive. I think that using mixed media on the sheets of paper was also effective as it layered the drawings and it makes it easier to view each individual drawing as drawing them on top of each other can get quite confusing.

Portraits and Illustrations

Today we did some Portrait drawing and sketching. I started off just doing some quick charcoal drawings, trying to get used to the shape, lines and tones of the face.

After doing these drawings I decided that I was trying to do them too quickly and I wasn't measuring or ensuring that everything lined up properly as the face looked out of proportion.

I spent the next couple of hours working on one drawing using a mixture of conte and charcoal. The chalk allowed me to use a lighter application and this allowed room for mistakes as they were easily over come by just re-applying the conte where it needed to be. I then used the charcoal to darken the areas that created a lot of shadow.

 

 

 

I think this was successful. I like the tonal shading I have created using the mixed media. The person I was drawing was looking down quite a lot (hense why she has her eyes closed in the drawing) and this makes the drawing look quite strange. I found it quite difficult drawing such a detailed thing when the person was moving quite a bit as she was working at the same time. I think I would take more time over facial features if I were to do this again and try and draw the person with their eyes open, it would make the drawing a lot more inviting and open.

After doing a detailed drawing we had to do drawings which reflected the personality of the person we were drawing through an illustration...

 

 

I know Emily for her big hair, eyes and lips. She's very welcoming and will talk to anyone. I tried to reflect this through this quick drawing. I think it's friendly and demonstrates her natural looks. I preferred the drawing before I worked into it and started shading areas. The simple line work was really effective but with some areas block coloured it's more heavy and not as delicate as I would have preferred it to look.

 

Life Drawing

After not doing any life drawing for a little while we started with doing quick 10 minute drawings using different media to get used to it again.

I think I did better using my brush pen. I had more of a fluid movement and it was easier to shade in the darkest areas (top left, top right and bottom right). On the bottom left image I used a fine liner pen which didn't allow me to have such a fluid movement which meant I had to be more careful where I applied the pen line as mistakes were very noticeable.

I most like the bottom right image. I used a grey brush pen to map and shade the majority of the image and then used a black brush pen for the darkest area's. I think this way of applying the media gave the image more depth and also made it easier to identify and apply to the darkest areas.

 

 

 

 

 

I decided that I really liked using the grey and black brush pens together so I decided to do another sketch in that style. We had a bit longer (20 minutes) to do this sketch which allowed me more time to do it a bit bigger and also get the whole body in the image. They're a lot more effective when you include all the body parts. I feel like I need to spend a bit longer measuring and making sure I get everything in proportion  as the right leg doesn't look right and the arms look quite short. I'd like to be able to shade more as well. I also need to concentrate on the areas that are more difficult to draw like the feet and hands as I feel this is letting my life drawings down.

The second image didn't really work. None of the body is in proportion, I think this is because I didn't allow myself enough room to work on the page and I may have just squished it in the bottom as none of the body parts match up correctly. I need to bare in mind for future drawings to give myself enough room to work.

 

 

 

 

After not giving myself enough room on the sketch before, I tried again on a fresh piece of paper with a new pose. I decided to use the grey brush pen for mapping out the main sketch of the pose. Then used a black brush pen for the darkest areas and a blue brush pen for the highlights. I feel like I knew what I was aiming for in this image but it wasn't as successful as I had hoped.
I think I should have spent longer drawing out the body and getting everything in proportion before I began shading it as the body looks very large in comparison to the legs which I feel should have been longer and wider because of the position the model was sitting in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I felt like I was getting tired of using the brush pens and that I wasn't getting things in proportion very well, so I changed to a different type of media.
I moved on to using Conte. With this media it was much easier to measure and draw the lines out straight, then go back in and curve the lines into the correct positioning. It also made it easier to use different levels of shading as some parts of the body only needs light shading whereas other parts are very dark. I still think I need to take more time to ensure everything is in proportion, I need to use some guidelines to ensure each part of the body lines up correctly and take more time drawing in smaller details, especially on the feet and hands.