drawing comparison

I wanted to take this opportunity to post 2 pictures showing the difference of good presentation of your drawings.

Above is a picture taken of my work after the class. Its low resolution..badly lit and has some image distortion due to the picture not being taken front on. This stage of the drawing is a reasonably successful blocking of the light and shadow shapes.



and here is a good quality picture taken at home after a little bit of extra work without the model




This is actally the same drawing although i took a good quality photo with no distortion and i cropped the image for a better effect. A good crop is very important as by cropping your re-designing your image. I usually draw with that in mind.

Because in the class session i blocked in the shadow shapes on the model i was able to see were my light and shadow shapes are. So at home the first thing  i did was to darken areas of  my shadows  and refine my midtones by blending the edge of the shadow side (the core shadow) into the light side. I could then pick out a few highlights where i knew they would be like on the knee and shoulder. This makes the drawing look more 3 dimentional and more finished. All without any photo reference.

I heard one teacher say that if you have a successful block-in of your drawing the finish will take care of itself. So its important to have consistently strong blockings.

life drawing august 2016

Gesture

I wanted to talk a bit about gesture.

Gesture in the figure is the fundamental design line in a figure, the action of the figure . Its the long axis that takes your eye  from one form to another. Steve huston says its the movement between the forms while 'structure' is the movement over the forms. When the drawing is kept simple its easier to have a strong gesture line but when the drawing is taken further with more detail rendering the gesture is usually lost and the drawing can become very stiff.  Great artists can capture a persons gesture in only a few lines and many artists say that its the single most important element in the drawing.

here are some examples of great gesture drawing from great artists.







As you can see by the arrows in the drawing above.  the gesture can follow the long curve of the contour of the figure. This is usually the stretched part of the figure. Try to emphasize the stretched areas of the figure with long confident lines.

you can also use the core shadows and highlights to accentuate the gesture.
In the following example by steve huston look how you follow the core shadows in a watery fluid way through the figure. This is a great example of a more rendered figure but with strong gesture. The highlights are also dynamic in taking your eye down and over the form. Even the cross hatching of the shadows take your eye through from one side to the other. 








 


 And here is an stunning example of a drawing by steve huston taken much further in terms of rendering but you can still see a strong gestural flow through the entire figure.. He has translated the figure into simple ideas. Although to simplify something is alot more difficult. than just coping it as you see it.

Life Drawing 3rd July 2016

Thanks to Richard Slade for taking the role as the model in the class. Great work and some good likenesses of Richard.

this is a great likeness of Richard

Life Drawing June 5th

Apologies for the looooong delay on updating this blog

here are the drawings from the 5th June 2016

Great job on all the drawings. Having a fuller model presents different challenges to the artist. There are less obvious bony landmarks so drawings can appear really round and lack variety in the forms. I was told to look for as much straights as possible in the model. Thankyou to richard for taking the photos and hosting the class.