Exercise: Three longer studies

MEDIA: Pencil, charcoal pencil and charcoal sticks

METHOD: I attended life drawing sessions and did these on large pieces of white paper for three poses: standing, seated and lounging and timed at about an hour.

REFLECTIONS:

• Getting the correct proportion of limbs etc on this took me a while so it looks less finished as a drawing even though I spent an hour on it.
• The model was on a low bed and leaning on a stool and stretching her legs right off it – so it gave a kind of lounging effect which I think I captured well and I like the line from the torso to her toes on the right leg as it draws the eye in a pleasant way and dimensions etc all seem relatively correct
• The left arm perhaps doesn’t look as comfortable and loose as it actually was
• I tried applying tone and then some further messier mark making to give the effect of the surroundings without making them central as I didn’t want to take away from the figure – though I think I achieved this less with the stool because it was so dark and in the model’s shadow as well
• Perhaps deserved some more tone and shadow once I had the figure right

REFLECTIONS:

• This drawing was more finished in detail but I didnt pay enough attention to the overall figure proportion
• The front facing leg worked well but the optical illusion of this and foreshortening led me to make the left leg too small compared to the proportion of the body to a certain extent thought the model was definitely not a tall person
• I like the tilt of the head to the left axis which sits well with the weight of the body to the left leg that is supporting him more
• I tried to set a background tone first before drawing and then taking off tone to get better highlights which worked well

REFLECTIONS:

• For some reason, even though this was a very particular angle from below looking up and thus gave a challenging need to drastically foreshorten, I think this drawing worked best. Sometimes when the angle is so clearly different I find it almost easier to capture because I am so much more aware of it.
• I also really just enjoyed this challenge and the pose (model was higher up on a kind of plinth so we were very much looking up)
• I think I also managed to get the weight and rest captured well and even though I couldn’t see her right arm, I think you can assume she is leaning on it (which she was) and it doesn’t seem off
• This is also perhaps helped by the fact that the eye is drawn more down through the leg to the toes at the front
• I spent more time on the drawing than the tone here and I realise also that adding tone sometimes makes me lose the drawing since I am still learning how to apply tone

GENERAL REFLECTIONS:

• I had to do these at different times and the start of the sessions always had shorter poses, warm ups etc. for practice so I think you can also see progress from the first to the third as I got looser and more able with more sessions I tried
• Adding some charcoal line and tone more in the last drawing also helped get a nicer style I think – I also avoided rubbing in any pencil or charcoal as per the first one and tried more to do marks, scores and shadows as I progressed and this worked better