Today was our second life drawing class of the year, and overall i enjoyed it much more then i did the first lesson, this is because, for this lesson we were left to our own devises more and told to draw how we like to draw rather then what Ron would like, therefore you could question if i am learning as i am not challenging myself like i did last week. However, we started the class off with three different five minute drawings of quick poses. The first one is always the hardest, you first set your eyes on the model, you need to get a feel for her body shape so it is always much slower then the next couple of drawings. Although the model was the same lady as the previous week so it made it much easier at the beginning of the class to get straight into the drawing.
The image to the left is the first piece i completed. It lacks in line work, tonal range and mostly everything i drawing should include. I do like the proportions though as i felt at the time the proportions were right, and looking back at the drawing now, i still believe it to be so. If i had warmed up quicker i would have liked some time to have added in some more line work to mark all of the twists and curves of the models body. I would have also liked to have added the head, and the facial features. The way i go around drawing is that the head shape should be drawn but only when you have everything else in proportion should you then concentrate on getting the facial features down onto paper, and due to the lack of time i did not have quite enough to get this done. This image is on a A2 piece of paper, so it is fairly large and therefore looks a bit bare with it just being this simple line work. As i said previously it is only a warm up so it isnt going to be at the same standard as my pieces where i get to spend 20-30 minute on.
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The images to the left are more images of the quick five minute drawings, and in fact even including last weeks lesson i did not get a back pose, so i really enjoyed drawing how the leg bends back and how the back twists in correlation to the arms.
I did not realise that the vertebrae in your back can show though the skin on larger models. The back had dimples all the way down that back which i found really interesting. These images are not anything to be proud of, they are just quick warm up exercises to get me in the mood for a solid two hours of concentration and life drawing!!
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The next task was to complete a twenty minute drawing, how we want the draw, there was not any order, exercise attached to this task, it was simply draw. (which i loved) I was really lucky, being at the front of the class meant that i got a really good front view of the model as well as a good face portrait. I wanted to try and pay attention to what i draw first. I seem to start wit the basic shape of the head. one i have done that i hold a pencil up to the model and work out what would be half way down the page, and what would be at the bottom. Marking the page out at the beginning makes the whole initial drawing so much easier, less rubbish out, less pencil marks and re-drawing lines. I normally start with the shoulders and getting the top angle right, i then measured the distance between the two elbows by holding a pencil up to the model again and also the angle that meet the two elbows together. I did the same for the legs and the knees. I find legs remarkable to draw as many people that do not take much interest in art or drawing would draw legs very straight, rectangular, not much shape, but legs have a vast amount of gentle curves and minor dips, they are not completely straight or flat. The same with the arms, but for me personally i find legs harder to draw, and i also find it harder to get the legs in proportion with the body, i feel like i have done okay with proportion in this drawing. Due to my camera being a bit dodgy it is hard to see that the model is actually sitting on a chair covered in fabric - which would explain the slight 80 degree angle the model is drawn at.
I did not have enough time to shade in all of the drawing, my twenty minute ran out but i wanted to insert a close up image of the drawing, mainly because it is probably the first drawing from the two life drawing lessons that i have taken part in, that i like. I love doing portraits of face silhouettes, i think that you can really get a liking to someone when you draw their facial silhouette. If i had more time i would finish the shading, it was very quick scratchy shading, i wanted to try and get as much down as quickly as i could so i was not very subtle and gentle with my markings. My tutor keeps trying to get it into our heads that we need to draw what our eye see's rather then what our brain think it see's, and i know it is something that takes a while to grasp, but i think i am getting the hang of it, i am much more confident today then i was this time last week, and i think i have come out with better drawings for it.
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This was the second twenty minute piece we completed in class, i prefer the first drawing more, i feel that it was less successful then the previous drawing, not due to any constructive reason, but just that i prefer the look of the first drawing, maybe because of the models
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TO BE FINISHED TOMORROW
In our life drawing class we were split into two groups. Group one would go down stairs for the first part of the lesson and concentrate on drawing a famous man dancing, it is rather embarrassing that i cannot remember his name really. Ron put on the movie and he paused on a certain performance so we could see the way the gentleman's body moved, where it twisted, the angles of the feet, shoulders and arms. I started off by drawing some really quick vague lines across the page so i could try and get the same proportions. I actually think the top line of the drawings above is quite successful, from studying at Farnham i feel like i have picked up so much, and before i honestly would not have thought that when people walk they walk with arks like a ball bounces. I actually got the arch for the head on the top row which i'm really happy with. The actor was spinning around and ended up pointing his left hand the air. I actually found it really interesting, when you watch a film sequence, you don't realise all of the angles and constant changes, it really opened up my eyes. Personally i think that i would prefer to animate animals so maybe it would be a good idea to record some natural history television programmes and some wild life documentary's and do the same task we did today in detail. This is something i could do for research when starting any animation!
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