Warm ups

Here are some of my daily early morning warm up sketches and the figure drawing I did of Sarabella on Wednesday night at Ateleir Artista. http://www.atelierartista.com

"Window-shading" the sketched figure

Lately my figure drawing process has become window-shading. its a fast way, after a general lay in, to capture and render from head to toe. This time I didn't quite make it to the end and left the foot unfinished revealing my process. Essentially "window-shading" is an area by area method of working on the piece after the overall composition has been drawn in. Below is the one I did from the last figure drawing session at Atelier Artista.

If you'd like to join in the fun we draw from life every Wednesday night 7 - 10 pm at Atelier Artista located n the fourth floor of cSPACE!

In the eye of the beholder

In todays portrait class I taught the anatomy of the eye and how to see and create realistic forms when drawing the eye.

re·al·is·tic

ˌrēəˈlistik/

adjective

representing familiar things in a way that is accurate or true to life.

synonyms:

true to life, lifelike, truthful, true, faithful, unidealized, real-life, naturalistic, graphic

We discussed the anatomy, the academic approach, how we shade the sclera to represent its white spherical form within the eye socket so our eyes don't look flat and painted on. Where to look for the the important highlights that fall on the lens of the cornea and why, where the iris becomes highlighted due to this. How the cast shadow from the top eyelid creates more depth. 

After a bunch of notes on slate I did a quick drawing demo and then the students got onto their eye studies.

If this looks good to you and you might want to come learn all aspect of head and portrait drawing or painting come on down or sign up at http://atelierartista.com

take a little moment to figure out.......

I'd like to take this rare opportunity to sit, breathe and update my blog.  It has been nearly two very full weeks of teaching in the days and a few nights of the week. My hand and brain are nearly fatigued from all the art doing, teaching and making. And I'd like to share part of this weeks journey into drawing the figure. All the work you see here is from just two classes (Mon and Tue) Yes. All of them!

 We started in with some 30 second gestural drawings. I was feeling super Rusty. The last time I did any drawing from life was back when I last posted about it here on this blog.

We did some blind contour. Drawing without looking at the paper to help work with line.

I'm definitely feeling Rusty!  I had poor planning in capturing the essence of the figure in the short period of time we had to capture her.


Then began working with the placement of the joints and outlining the skeletal structure.

I like some of the dynamic poses I was able to capture in these quick sketches.


 Here are a few drawings where I had a bit more time to begin outlining the body. I used black and brown conte for the first time.

 Here I am beginning to refine the accuracy of my line work, but still it is highly flawed, I wont go into details, but I'm not afraid of sharing my failures either.


I blocked in the skull taking note of the mandible and then working down the cylindrical forms of the limbs. I added some fire just to break up the monotony and my frustration.

The model did not have a gimp leg, the artist tried to fix it along the way.

There is that gimp leg again, I'm not quite getting the gravity on these angles.
 
Some of the masses are all wrong, the head is too small, the angles and muscles are wonky and the front foot is off.



 The cob webs are beginning to clear and I include detail of the stool and fabric.

 This one I braved ink to allow my mistakes to really stand out. It helped quite a bit.
 
It is said that we leave out the things that we have trouble with. Usually the head hands and feet.


I put more time into the head this one, it looks good, but it is too big for the body. It is difficult to see how it connects.  The hand is too small, as well.

I go back to conte again to loosen up and work with the weight of my line.

 Now I'm getting there. I think this time the head is too small, it is because instead of adding hair on top of the skull I cut it in and it caused me to make the features too little too.

 This angle had terrific foreshortening, and I put more time into the fabric to create a cohesive environment for the body.

 
This one I did earlier but I like how I used the color of the models hair as a backdrop in conte. The perspective on the chair is off kilter but the image as a whole is working out.

Any questions or constructive comments are greatly appreciated, thanks for checking this out =:D