Life Drawing week 4

We started with a ten-minute warm up this week, and I tried block out, in horizontal lines, my major 'landmarks' (shoulders, hips, waist, knees etc.) before starting, to try and ensure that the page placement wouldn't slip again.

I wanted to get the majority of the pose in but once again found myself hooked on adding detail to the back before finishing the whole pose.

During the three minute to five minute gesture poses, I tried this week to experiment with completely different drawing styles. With this pose, I tried to keep my eyes off the page and on the model, and use bigger, simpler lines. Line economy seemed important in the early stages. In the end the scale and proportion of this pose was way off.

Again, I tried to just draw without thinking. And again, the legs ended up far smaller than the torso demanded. A shame, as I quite liked the line that traced the shade along the rib cage down the side.

Trying to capture the muscle dynamism in the arms. I'd have liked to capture the weight distribution of the legs but these were still very short poses.

This was approximately a ten minute pose, but I don't feel that I captured any depth. I was using a charcoal pencil, rather than willow charcoal sticks, and I think this made me more cautious with the line making and reluctant to layer on shading as I should have. 

Another short pose with proportion issues, that also lacks weight and depth.

We briefly switched models, and this 20 minute study captured some of the brittle physicality of his form. Again, though, without rounded shadowing and contrast it looks too flat.

The last 20 minute pose and, again, a different technique as far as drawing. This time, I decided to stand at a full arm's length from the paper to draw. It made seeing the proportions on the page easier as there was no need to scale up or down. The left leg ended up a little short, and without the required feeling of bearing weight, but other elements worked quite well. The head size is incorrect, I think due to the model naturally shifting during the time and my not adjusting to it. Again, willow charcoal should have been used to give the shading purpose and depth.