Figure drawing. This is where I started my art journey, originally by pursuing a goal of drawing comics. Its interesting to see how things have changed.
Most weekends, still, I do life drawing (well, virtual life drawing, given Covid). In fact, just before Covid I’d just started regularly going to in-person drawing events in an effort to being networking with other artists.
Anyway, since that time I pay attention to a number of online virtual event groups and attend one or two a week depending on how they fit into my schedule. I also wandered around Gumroad, ArtStation and elsewhere and purchased reference photo collections. They have been an invaluable resource for me to study from.
I continue to struggle with hands and feet, like nearly everyone. But practice makes better.
I’m a little worried that I won’t take this section as seriously as the others, due to my familiarity with the subject matter. I need to make sure I don’t self-sabotage here.
Exercise 1: Virtual lifedrawing with Mark
Its fascinating to me how much my drawing changes depending on the medium I’m working with. With something precise, my drawing tightens up and I get caught up in the details. But here? I was using blocks and I really feel the freedom in the marks. I can feel motion in these marks.
Another change in my drawing, which I mentioned before, is the size of my work. I’d really only started working at this size before enrolling. Mostly I’d fill pages of standard sketchbooks with lifedrawing practice. Now, I can’t imagine drawing that small. My A3 sketchbook is the smallest pages i work with now, except when doing materials tests of scratchy doodles.
Experimenting with pan pastel. I like the messiness of it, and the ability to lift it back out with a soft eraser. Working solely with black, it really lets me dig into contrast in a way I struggle with using other methods. Proportions are a bit off with this drawing. A little cro magnon, with a pencil neck.
This image doesn’t fit in the theme, but was part of the experimenting with materials.
Research 4a: Foreshortening
The first artist that came to mind, when I thought of foreshortening was M.C. Escher. Admittedly, much of the work of his that I’m familiar with is pattern/optical illusion, but I remembered he had done some self portraits from spherical mirrors.
Here, the artist is using foreshortening to convey a deep reflected space, and to show us that the artists’ physical position in relation to the work. It is remarkable demonstration of perspective, and mathematical understanding of light and space. His rendering of the hand is incredibly lifelike, though the reflected face has this ominous yet cartoonish quality in the images I have access to. I’d love to see this piece in person to see how the face actually looks.
When I first started my art journal, a few years back, I began via following Stan Prokopenko’s youtube videos, and later I signed up for his members videos to get more indepth with figure drawing. I can remember his many comments talking about drawing the head & shoulders and how we always have to consider foreshortening. Whether it is the nose seen straight on, or the angle of the eyes in a 3-quarter view, or the shoulders when seen in profile.
In most poses, the some part of the body is seen foreshortened. I’d argue, that only the most boring of poses have none.
Exercise 2: Essential Elements
I got very caught up, here, thinking about the gesture and balance of the models rather than worrying about creating any sort of finished image. I roughly worked in lighting, where I felt like it, but didn’t focus too heavily here.
I was working with a large square block of graphite on kraft paper. I did not like the marks it makes on this paper, but kept with it. I think it forced me to stay broad with my marks. You can see in the image, top right, where I tried to get towards a semblance of fine detail and it didn’t really work. That forced me to step back and just think in gesture as I had originally intended.
Given the situation with Covid, I relied upon my library of professional art reference photos from various studios. This allowed me to try a few poses that would be impossible in a normal studio session. I’m going to come back to those and do more of them, as dynamic nature was fun. I’ve shown one of those here.
Sketchbook
I’ve captured some of my doodles, here, as I’ve done readings and generally spending time thinking about Part 5.
(please [don’t]) change
Here, I’m thinking about nostalgia and entropy, and the conflicting desire we have to see things progress while also staying the same.
Broadly, the theme is “change”, but the parentheticals bring into the theme the emotional impact of those changes. How we don’t want the things we love to change, while we do hope for change in the things we dislike. But ultimately, we have little control and things will change how they will. Nothing is static.
It doesn’t show well here, but I was practicing with corroding/distressing the metal foil. Using vinegar and vinegar+salt solutions cause a slight greenish discolouration. I think I can work with that.
A bunch of other random assortments of doodles, as I was watching TV with my partner.
An idea, here, of a serpentine form wrapping around a thinking figure. Klimt-like lozenges of shape and colour form the background and other space around the forms.
I’ve been thinking about poses that convey a sense of memory, or that I can fit into a narrative of memory. This relates to where I am currently thinking I’ll take Part 5. I’ve been toying with a theme:
This follows from the serpent wrapped figure to the left. Here I’m exploring a bit more with collage, as I try out layering mulberry paper ontop of the drawing. Using a sharp blade, I picked some of the mulberry-paper apart to expose the drawing below (the figure, some serpentine forms). The drawing is both on the main surface below, and some on the mulberry paper. Pencil, Ink, Paint stick (gold), pastel.
I might take this further, but wanted to see what the paper effect would be like. I do like the transparency effect, but need to think about it carefully. I also like the lines formed from the mulberry paper itself. They’re random and curving, and give me sense of random connections.