Life Drawing

Life Drawing

Using Wet Media (Paint)

26/01/15

While we were using paint, we weren't using paint brushes, and were to use our hands like we had previously done. We were only allowed to use the primary colours, white and Burnt Umber, for definition. We were to focus on the highlights and low lights, and pay particular attention to any other colours reflected on the skin.

I focused mainly on the shoulders and shoulder blades for this particular piece, and found that I enjoyed a method of pointilism. I was constantly dabbing my fingers on the paper, using a different finger for each colour so as to avoid mixing the colours up. This resulted in a bright and bold block coloured piece that wasn't neat or too messy. 

For this piece I tried using all of my hand, rather than just my fingers as I had previously. instead of dabbing the paint on, I wiped it onto the page using the side of my hand, making sure that, this time, the colours blended on the page. The over all effect was striking, however a little unintelligible.

Next time I do life drawing, I will be sure to step back from the easel once in a while so that I can see what my work looks like in comparison to the model. This will help me build on getting the correct proportion and will also help widen my perspective.

life drawing

Life drawing

Evaluations

20\01\15

I feel the it is very easy to use the chalk to create highlights, however at the same time it is rather difficult due to the fact that I need to look carefully where to put the highlights so that it is not out of proportion.

With this drawing, it came to my attention that, instead of doing rather harsh and sketchy lines, I had begun to soften the lines by blending, this affect wasn't as strong as in previous drawings. Upon realising this I tried to make the lines a little harsher, which worked to a certain extent, however was the wrong time to change what I was doing.

Life Drawing

Research

Aspects of the body I wish to improve on

18/10/15

After the life drawing session, it came to my attention that I needed to look into how to draw hands and feet, as perhaps the head, in proportion to the body: Hands and feet in general.

The Head:

The Hands:

The Feet:

How I will put this research into context

This research will become very helpful when it comes to drawing full body sketches, or even focusing on these specific areas when life drawing. I will print out these images and use them as reference.

Additional research

Collar bones:

As I am interested in Collar Bones and the structure of them, I shall be focusing on them within my Vorticism and Futurism work.
I find them interesting because, depending on a persons structure, the collar bones can be visible or not, and have a different structure between men and women.

Life Drawing

Using a model

Charcoal sketches

13/1/15

As this was the second session using the model and we had recapped the basics, we could then chose between using a graphics tablet, pencil or charcoal. As I used pencil in the session before, and using a graphics tablet wasn't something I preferred, I chose to use charcoal.

Charcoal was very easy to use and also allowed me to create rather messy drawings that still had an element of tidiness to them.

The first sketch was more of a practice, and I was also getting used to the media. I found it very easy, however, to sketch out the shape and as tone. The drawing has a very scratchy nature, and was once again focused on only the neck down.

This second pose I found a little more difficult to do, and I also found adding tone to it more difficult than I did with the first pose. It is also a little disproportioned.

This pose I found the hardest to do, as it meant looking closely at the shoulder blades and the small amount of shadowing. it also meant drawing a hand, which was quite difficult to do using charcoal, considering that I already struggle when it comes to drawing hands in the first place. I need to improve on trying not to make elements of the sketch too dark, such as the shoulder blades, and I also need to focus on drawing hands

With this sketch, I felt that I needed to include the head, however, I felt that it could ruin the piece, so I instead only included the hair and the bottom of the chin. I found this pose a little harder to draw, as the shadowing varied throughout from very little to a lot, which I struggled to do. This was one of the longer sketches, and I feel that having more time on it meant I had to do more when I finished relatively quickly, and so I kept adding more shadowing, which I eventually went a little over board with.

The final sketch was the most complex, as I needed to draw with perspective as well as include hands and feet, as I couldn't just avoid the,. The hands began as they did in the previous sketch, however, after looking more closely and going carefully around, I finally managed to draw hands that actually resembled hands, rather than sausages. The feet weren't as good, as I didn't have a lot of time to focus on them, and the legs also needed a little more time spent on them. I do feel, however, that this is the strongest session of the drawing due to things, such as the hands, that I had to focus on more to make them look realistic, even though they aren't wuite realistic yet. 

Life Drawing

Looking at a model

Back to basics

6/1/15

This was the first session in which we were using an actual model as a point of observation. I found this a little awkward, due to the fact that it was a little out of my comfort zone, however, I quickly adjusted. The model we are observing and will be for the sessions to come is female.

Because we were recapping the basics, we were using pencil and were using such techniques as measuring for proportion.

These are only two of the sketches I did.

Using pencil was a hard to use when it came to adding tone. I also pressed on a little too hard, resulting in a thick lines. The top sketch proved that, while I was mainly focusing on the neck down, I needed to look at the proportion of the head more, as it was too disproportionate to the rest of the drawing, this may also be because I drew the head last.

In the second sketch I didn't draw the head, but instead focused more on the neck down.

Life Drawing

Last session with Skeletons

Media Experimentation

16/12/14

Because this was the last session observing the skeletons, we were free to experiment with different media, My drawings were a mixture of media, such as pen, coloured pencil, chalk and One sketch on a graphics tablet. 

For the first sketch done on paper, I used white chalk for highlights and green chalk for shadowing.

For the second sketch, I focused mainly on the pelvis, using a felt tip pen and contour lines. As the pen was running out, I used this to my advantage, easily creating different tones within the sketch.

The final sketch I am most pleased with, I focused on the skull and started out using a plain orange colouring pencil to get the shape and tone within the drawing. I then started adding a small amount of green within and around to add an outline that wasn't too strong. After this, I used a ball point pen to go over the green lines and also did a little bit of hatching behind the skeleton. Over all I feel that this was my strongest drawing from this session.

Life Drawing

Life Drawing: Christmas

Using paint

9/12/14

Before using the paint, we first did a sketch using charcoal, however, instead of using the media in the conventional sense, we attached it to the end of a stick, stood back and sketched the skeletons that way. This allowed for practise to looser movement when drawing, and also required a lot more concentration. Since I was off the week before, this was my first time using a stick, however, I am especially pleased with how it turned out

 (Note: Because it is nearing christmas, our skeleton subjects had been decorated with baubles, hence the circle on the top of its head)

After this we then moved on to using paint, however, we weren't to use paintbrushes, only our hands. As well as this, we were only given the three primary colours and white paint to use, with instructions not to blend the paint to create new colours, and only to let it mix on the page when applying it, once again, we were not to blend the colours on the page. The paint had a simply objective, which was to show low lights and highlight through the use of primary colours, and while most show high lights in yellow and low lights in blue, I decided to use red for my low lights and yellow for my highlights.

I started off by applying the highlights, so as to avoid blending the colours as much as possible, however as I went further through the painting I concluded that this was futile, as when it came to applying the red they blended anyway, resulting in a rather pleasing transition from yellow to red, which showed the shadowing more. I then added blue so that it wasn't all colour and, using the back of my nail, applied it in a scratchy fashion around the skeleton as an outline. later on I added a little white for extreme highlight. Blue was also used for extreme low lights.

We then did another painting in the same fashion, however, this time, we were to look at Fauvism, specifically, we were to pay attention to Henry Matisse, and how he used block colours to show highlights and low lights on the face.
This time I was prepared, and using Blue for low lights, yellow for highlights and red for extreme low lights, I used a different finger for each different colour application and began to work in blocks of colour, carefully applying

Overall, my impression of working in this style was rather good, as I found it allowed you to express more and try more things, where as when using a brush, it restricted me in a way that, when using a brush, I felt I had to be neat. Using my hands to paint broke me out of that idea, and so I began to experiment more, and so I enjoyed it a lot more.

Life Drawing

Life drawing

Continuing with skeletons

18/11/14

As I had missed one session of life drawing, the first sketch we did was a little confusing to me, and, because I wasn't familiar with the technique, I wasn't overly pleased with he outcome, however, with more practise results should become better:

The method used here was to construct a shape into which the drawing would fit into properly and correctly proportioned. Looking at the skeleton I was observing, the rib cage would've fit into a square or rectangle, however I had a lot of trouble with the size which left the skeleton extremely disproportioned.

After this, I was to draw a skeleton, only using chalk however, to construct the object using the highlights only:

We had already done this but the paint. I feel that the chalk was a lot easier to control and use, the result of which I am very happy with.

next I was to do the same but to then use charcoal to add in any low lights I could see. I did this twice with two different set ups. 

Overall I prefer the last drawing out of them all


(Late blog as the images I had taken had been lost and so I re-took them when was next possible)

Life Drawing: Recap

Life Drawing: Recap

Using pencil

04/11/14

After having a week of of life drawing, it was necessary for us to get back into the swing of things, and with new editions to the class, it was also a good opportunity to teach those of the techniques we had learnt previously whilst doing it ourselves.

First of all, we did a freehand sketch. We were once again using the skeletons.

Once we had done this, we then moved onto another set-up, this time we were using the measuring technique we had learnt, while teaching those who didn't know how to do it. 

Once we had finished this, we were then asked to do a five minute sketch with loose and relaxed movements

We then moved on to doing full body sketches, however, we only had five minutes to begin with. The more sketched we made, the smaller the time limit got. Some sketched were 1 minute, 30 seconds and even 15 seconds long.

During this, we were not allowed to change onto a fresh piece of paper, we were also instructed to draw a moving figure.

Lastly, we moved onto a ten minute full body sketch, however, we weren't to add too much detail.

Life Drawings

Life Drawing

Drawing from a skeleton

21/10/14

Using the research I did on artists who used contour within their work, I have attempted, as instructed, to channel one of the artists work. Once again we were using charcoal, which isn't my strongest media, and were creating the image using contour, which was a lot harder than I thought. 

Once we had finished the charcoal, we then had five minutes to add white paint to highlight the drawing while being as expressive as possible, to the point where the drawing had completely changed. We switched between the paint and the charcoal as we worked. 

After this we were then asked to walk around the room to evaluate one or more of the other drawings. 

I chose this drawing as it clearly shows the highlights and the tone within the skeleton the person was observing. the paint has also been added in a relatively expressive manner, yet they have managed to obtain the drawings shape and keep the image from becoming something completely indistinguishable.

Next we moved on to black paper and were asked to start 'backwards' by adding the highlights first, without adding any tone. We did this twice, each time with a different set-up and a time limit of five minutes to put in as much detail as possible without rushing.

I feel that the second painting is a lot stronger than the first, as I had then had time to come to grips with the media and the way in which it was being applied. The first painting, while relatively distinguishable, had been lost as I added highlights.

Lastly, the final drawing was to be composed using both charcoal and paint, with addition to using chalk as well. It was a new set-up and was to be done so that any highlights were obvious e as well as any tone.

Continuing with the theme of being expressive, I applied the paint quickly, went over it with the whita chalk and added charcoal where any tone was. The end result, I feel, was strong and showed how quick I was applying the different media. 

Out of all pieces made I feel that the highlights only drawing was the most fun to do and was also some of the strongest pieces created within the session.

Life drawing continuation

Life drawing

Drawing from a skeleton

7/10/14

As part of life studies, we have continued to study the skeleton, however, rather than using pencil, the media used was charcoal and chalk. We were given 15 minutes to draw the skeletons in front of us in as much detail as possible. While I have had lots of practice recently with this particular media, it is clear that practice is needed, most obviously when it comes to sketching out the lines, as they are too heavy. I am pleased, however,  with the tone and the shadowing on the piece.

After completing the first 15 minute sketch, we were then given a few minutes to walk around the room to look at the other pieces. We were then asked to pick out the ones that appealed to us and to write about it.

I chose this piece as the drawing style intrigued me and was perhaps the complete opposite of my own. While I blended and focused on the tone and the shadowing, as well as worked at a bigger scale., this person worked at a much smaller scale and didn't blend in the charcoal to give the tone, as I had, but used small scratchy lines to create the tone.

The second sketch we were asked to do was of a different set up and was to be done whilst channelling the style of the piece of artwork we had chosen. This was especially difficult for me, as I found it rather hard to switch out of my usual style to something as different, however, I gave it a go.

The objective of this piece, as well as drawing in the style of the chosen piece, was also to add our own twist to it.

I struggled when it came to this sketch as I hadn't been putting as much thought into the proportions and the positioning, as I was focusing a little bit too much on the style I now had to try. I don't feel that it is my strongest piece, considering these issues, yet it was a rather good attempt considering I don't usually draw in that style.

Finally, the last sketch we were to compose was to be constructed of contour lines, rather than adding block tone and shadowing. I found this rather fun to do, as it meant using a light hand, in my case, and also meant choosing one part of the entire skeleton and putting in as much detail using contour lines as possible, and while I hadn't really put much on the paper, I do feel that this one sketch was the one that I put most care and thought into.

Life Drawing

Life Drawing

Drawing from a skeleton (Freehand)

30/09/14

As part of my studies, I have to draw from life. The first thing I did was look at and sketch a skeleton. We were given a 30 minute time slot in which we had to draw, in as much detail as possible, one of the four skeleton models before us. The first sketch we did was freehand.

Once the 30 minutes were up, we were then asked to walk around the studio and evaluate or look at each others work.

Drawing from a skeleton (proportioned and measured)

As part of my learning, we were then asked to sketch the same skeleton again, only this time, we were asked to use a technique we had previously learnt that allowed us to measure what we were looking at so as to get everything into proportion.

To do this, we held out pencil in our hand and had our arm fully outstretched, and with one eye closed, we then began to measure the proportions of the skeleton.

Once we had done this, we could then begin to sketch. Again we had a 30 minute time period in which we could put in as much detail as possible, however it wasn't to be rushed.

Lastly, We were given a task in which we were to draw three of the skeletons, however, we only had 5 minutes to draw each. At first, the five minutes seemed to go by relatively quickly, however the more times the 5 minutes pasted, the longer the time seemed to go by, until eventually I was no longer rushing but had slowed down considerably and had begun to put in more detail. 

Evaluation

Disregarding the third task I would say that the first two went rather well. The first attempt went rather well in terms of detail on the skull and on the rib cage while the second attempt was much more proportioned and in scale. Measuring the skeleton also allowed me to fit more onto the paper and start to put in a little more detail, however, the skull didn't seem to be as realistic.

For the third task, I would say that the first skeleton (The one in the middle) was perhaps the most rushed and resembled the skeleton the most as it was the one I had been drawing throughout the entirety of the session. The second skeleton (The one on the left) Was the most rushed and off scale, as it was at an odd angle and was the most difficult to see. Finally, the last skeleton (The one on the right) Was the most detailed out of all three, however was difficult to draw as it was partly hidden behind the first skeleton, and so I had to continue to draw in the first skeleton to put in as much detail as possible. 

Over all, I would say that each three drawings were good however, with a little more practice at proportions and the measuring technique, they will eventually be stronger pieces.