Life Drawing week 5

So this week I only kept hold of the drawings made from longer poses. The earlier, gesture poses had very little that made them worth taking home, as in many ways I felt like I had regressed from the first week by over-thinking basic poses and stalling on minor details while failing to capture the overall sweep of the model. However, I reverted back to using willow charcoal sticks and found that, for this kind of work, it really is the best medium, using the side of a stick to block in areas, breaking it down to manageable pieces, using large sweeps, it was far more versatile than the charcoal pencil I had been using.

Again, this led to a few issues with proportion. This piece captured the model quite well though, even if an initial misjudgement meant that it ended up much larger on the page than intended. In the end, I actually quite like that it removes some of the more extraneous parts and focusses just on the rounding of the back and relationship of the hip and thigh, and I thought the left forearm showed the foreshortening. The upper arm needs a little work, the armpit doesn't have the required effect, and I wish I'd have got the outline of the right leg in to balance the piece.

This piece was another example of moving on to detail before nailing down the basics. The shaded line down the back was originally where I'd placed the outer line of his back, and had started working on detail of the left hand and all of the right leg before realising that the whole pose had angle and proportional issues. The small image in the bottom right hand corner was the class tutor giving me an example to work from of a skeletal frame which captured just the basic lines and joints. This gives me a starting point for future drawings, and made me totally rearrange the torso of my drawing here, which I think led to it being at least partially successful. The thigh is still a little short, not by much, but when it's as prominent as it is here is sets the whole picture off a little askew. The head could do with a little size reduction too. The weight running down in to the feet seems decent though, and with a little adjustment the resting forearm of the left arm could be better integrated. The neck could use some detailing, it might help to bring the head in to the rest of the drawing.

From here I will start using the basic line figure sketch to nail down the angles and sizes of the model before I start 'drawing'. I think that being able to break the figure down in to manageable, simple lines is just something that I'll have to learn with practice. It runs counter to how I've taught myself so far, so the hardest part is unlearning or at least postponing those instincts. I think that the desire to immediately start impressing with recognisable detail is holding me back from constructing these images properly from the ground up, which is what is leading to such inconsistent results. Some weeks, quick sketches turn out in proportion and expressive, and some, like last week and this week, quick poses seem sloppy and unfocussed. It really is a case of drilling myself to, at the very least, produce something with the right proportions. Any detail, at this stage, is a bonus.