Lifedrawing with Ink

So.. drawing feet again today! This time it was a little bit more challenging, because we had to use a STICK with drawing ink!

Well, this was challenging for me, because normally I try to be very controlled with my drawings, but with a stick and ink, it's quite hard to do so. Therefore; for the majority of my drawings, I opted for the go-for-broke just go for it attitude. Here are the results:

 Here is my first attempt. I think its good for a first try, but the lines are a little heavy around the edge of the foot in the foreground. I think the toes have been blended in and shaded well, but I found it quite hard to do the shading on the main foot without it all blending together and looking flat. So, I opted for wispy lines.



My second drawing, which I think is better in a way because the shapes are more defined and the foor behind has been shaded successfully because you can tell that the big toe is pointed upwards. Again the lines are a little heavy around the base of the foot, which I realised early on. So, I went back over them to give a certain hint of movement and life into the drawing. I think I did well with experimenting with line densities but more could be done to shade the ankles and calves.

Okay, image 3: I carried out a couple of experiments here. I did it on cartridge to see how the material affected how the outcome looked. I also used a plastic knife as well as the stick to draw with. I was more confident to shade more, particularly around the ankle and the length of the foot. I did this by using the stick to create light, broad lines and then used the knife to put little scratchy lines in and around areas to create a sense of shadow and depth. I used the knife around the ankle and the base of the toes. I think this worked well. Overall, the perspective of the foot could have been executed better, but I'm happy with the shading:it brings movement and realism to the image.

Okay, they were my good ones. The next two images aren't as good, but I figured I'd better upload them anyway because I experimented with materials again.

 Well straight off we know this isn't good because it isn't finished for one. Basically we had to combine the ink with using chalk for highlights, and given the 20 minute time limit, I admit I did panic a bit and wasn't really sure about how to combine them effectively without areas looking flat. I think the toes look okay, as well as the base of the foot but the top of the foot doesn't look realistic as I was unsuccessful in combining the materials.

More of the same story really for this final image. This time I drew the leg to broaden my techniques. This was even harder to draw, not only because of the change of medium but also because we had to combine ink, chalk and charcoal! Oh God, was my first thought. I mean I struggled with just using chalk. I drew the basic shape with charcoal first, before adding the ink and blending it in a bit. I think this worked on the knee and the left side of the leg, but the charcoal could have been darker to complement the tone of the ink better. Nevertheless I was happy that it was better than my last one. Then I added the chalk and things didn't improve. The white area just looks flat really, and although the bloacks of colour add an abstract effect, it doesn't really work as a life drawing.

So there you have my second set of lifedrawings. Will be uploading more next week, but I should warn you, these are going to be the nude ones...

Fingerpainting Lifedrawing

Today in Lifedrawing we used acrylic paint to produce lifedrawing sketches in the style of Jenny Saville paintings.

This was the first Jenny Saville piece that I decided to influence. I chose it because the colour pallette stood out to me, particularly how the colours gave effect: the soft blue hues contrasting with the bold pinks and reds gives the painting atmosphere and mood.

First I got my initial acrylic colours. To influence this painting, I picked white, magenta, blue and teal for my basic colours. The aim was to do a unique sketch but influence the style of another piece. For mine, I sketched the angular shapes in pencil in my sketchbook and mesaured with my ruler for juxtaposing features of the face to make it realistic. This is my completed face:

To complete the painting itself, I used my fingers as a tool. I first covered the area with white emulsion thickly and gradually built up tones by mixing my colours together and making bold lines and then going over this again to soften the colour and also give a sense of blending. It took me a while to get a grasp of the technique, as on the blue side I made the colours too strong so it looked too messy; however by the end (the neck), I managed to get used to it as I could blend colours effectively. On its own it looks quite scary in my opinion but when compared with the original painting I think it was a good interpretation.

This is the second Jenny Saville piece I selected. It is a photographic piece but I thought it would be challenging task because it is a lot of similar tones merged together.

When composing my sketch, I again started with rough pencil guide lines to get the shape of the head right. I didn't manage to finish it, but I think it looks good so far:

I used yellow, red, white and burnt sienna paint to begin with. I started to map out shapes such as the cheek to gain a suished up effect like the original. I again painted a base white layer and then built up the shades from darkest to lightest so that it was easy to blend together. Compared to the original, my image favours oranges as opposed to browns. I did use brown but there wasn't much. I think this painting is successful although it is unfinished at the moment.

I enjoyed doing the fingerpainting because it allowed me to understand Saville's work more and I liked getting messy.



Lifedrawing: Hands & Feet

We began another new project today. This time, it's about life drawing. (Basically, observation sketches of the human form.)

Today, we focused on producing life drawings of hands and feet of the model. I found this quite challenging because I'm not used to drawing people, although I do observation drawings of objects at home quite a lot. I was very nervous, but they did come out better than anticipated!:

 These three sketches were done in pencil. I was a bit nervous about doing them because I've never done lifedrawing before, but I think they turned out well. For each sketch we had a 15 minute time limit which I found fairly hard to do but even so I think these sketches turned out well because I got nearly all proportions right as well as some shading, particularly on the hand. With these sketches, I drew without mapping out the basic shapes first, which took quite a lot of time, and I had to rub out various things. I'm happy with these results.

With some pages, I tea-stained the paper around my sketches to make my book look more exciting. I decided on tea staining because it's a different technique to usual paint washes and it gives an authentic look to the book.

These  next two sketches were done in charcoal.  The first sketch is quite rough and low in accuracy because it was the first time I used charcoal for sketching and I made a few mistakes which I couldn't rub out. Again, with this sketch I went straight into the detail without first mapping out the shapes. It is unfinished. 

           

My second attempt at using charcoal is much better. It is neater and I've been more fluent in achieving density with the charcoal on the shading. I mapped out the basic shape of the fist before filling in the detail of the fingers. I think this is my best drawing because it has good shading and it is almost to scale unlike my initial sketches. I think it helped sketching the basic parts first.

These are my final sketches. The one of the hand is again done in charcoal, and is also good but the palm needs to be bigger.

These final two sketches were done using graphite stick, which I prefer to charcoal because it still allows a great variety of densities, but it doesn't smudge like charcoal and it is easier to control.

   I like this first sketch I did of the hand holding the foot, because I got a good sense of shade and shape, especially on the toes. One thing I need to improve is not having the outside lines too heavy, because it takes away the realism.

Here is my final sketch. It was done in graphite stick again and was done on brown paper to add some texture. I found this one quite tricky because I couldn't seem to get the perspective of the heel right; however I think the toes are accurately drawn.

Well, that about sums it up for the hands & feet drawings. I really enjoyed doing it because I've never done it before. I didn't like the time limits but it is useful to do because gets you used to the tight limits just as it would in the real world. 

I'm happy with these initial sketches, and to improve I will learn to map out shapes first.