Tag: Figure Drawing

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The Figure is Beautiful

There is something about the figure as an art subject that fascinates me.  Most North-Americans are raised with the view that nudes are  naked and nasty, instead of beautiful and natural.  Like everyone in our mass-marketed-to-death culture, I have been indoctrinated with the mindset that thin, idealized proportions are beautiful, and fat and wrinkles less beautiful.  Since I have achieved middle-age, and I have acquired a few wrinkles myself, and an extra pound here or there, I am looking at people differently.  Certain wrinkles show a time of loss and grief, others show laughter, some show a lot of hours working in the sun.   Wrinkles lend visual character, a sag shows maturity, a little fat here or a paunch there has probably been earned.  But the beauty I am most interested in, is the play of light across the subject, any subject.  It’s just that the figure happens to be a difficult subject, one which challenges me every single time I attempt to draw it, so it becomes a game to me, to achieve a reasonable resemblance as well as to find the light.  The folds and shadows of fabric, while challenging, are very forgiving, in that the untrained eye might never notice if you’ve drawn a clothed figure “wrong”.  The nude figure on the other hand, is unforgiving — if I draw something in the wrong place, it looks wrong, and anyone looking at it can tell it is wrong.  That is the construct of realism that I like to work within, and that is one of my joys in nude figure drawing.  Another is the sheer immediacy, in that a model can only hold a pose for just so long.  And finally, I love the camaraderie and the energy of the other artists, and I am always inspired by seeing the way they tackled the problems they found in the same pose I was drawing, but from another point of view.  I guess I can even be a little philosophical about it, in that multiple points of view are all true, and there can be no arguing.  Maybe political leaders should take figure drawing classes!

Below are drawings done at Studio b. at the weekly figure drawing session.
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Making Stuff Up

This week at Studio b., we had a new model.  I get better at drawing any particular model after I have drawn him or her a few times.  The first session with a new model is difficult for me.  The week was no exception — I struggled.  And as if drawing a new model wasn’t hard enough, Heather also directed us to draw the background in our pictures, to give a sense of environment.

In my first drawings, I drew a hint of the studio room, and the drapes covering the model’s support boxes.  There was not enough time for me to draw the model with much accuracy, and also to draw the studio as well.  I grew increasingly frustrated.  So on my last drawing, I gave up with the studio background, and instead I put my figure on a porch near the ocean.  Heather is always telling us to draw what we see, not what we know.  But all I had was what I know, so my porch siding and shadows might be a little unconvincing.  It’s all part of the learning process.

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Line Quality and Lost Edges

Joan Vienot I was privileged to be the guest artist at the figure drawing session at Studio b. this week while our regular instructor was on vacation.  My focus was on line quality and lost edges. Joan Vienot
Sometimes  the edge between the two shadows becomes indistinct.  The same thing can happen with light areas, or for that matter, any two similar values.  The edge becomes “lost”.  The artist knows it is there, and the temptation is to draw it, but the piece generally ‘reads’ better and is more interesting if some edges remain lost.  Lost edges require the viewer to participate, to look longer, to figure out what’s going on in the picture.
I showed some examples by Andrew Wyeth, in which he used thicker lines, thinner lines, and darker and lighter lines, changing line quality  midway through a line.  I also pointed out how he sometimes left edges completely undrawn, implying a line by edges of other shadows, or by creating a different value behind, so that the “line” was the edge of two values.
I asked the artists to leave some edges undrawn, or “lost”, and I have posted here a few of the drawings that demonstrate the concept.
Nancy Nichols Williams Celia Rose Jameson
Nancy’s blue shadow covers the top of the right leg, the cast shadow, and the left side of the model.  The edges are lost in the shadow.  Celia’s shadows do the same.

Steve Wagner’s drawing also has some wonderful changes in line quality, some lines disappearing into nothingness, others obscured by light or shadow.

 Denis Wintersong
I also have included a couple of warm-up drawings by Denis Wintersong and Steve Dagg, which show line sensitivity before I gave my spiel, so I can’t take much credit — these all are accomplished artists, and all I did was give them something to think about, that they probably were already doing anyway! Steve Wagner

This being my first experience as the guest artist for the group at Studio b., I was honored to be in the middle of such talent and energy.

 Steve Dagg

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Figure Drawing: How Lucky Am I

Fourteen artists were at the figure drawing session at Studio b. this week.  Fourteen!  The gallery was overflowing with talent and enthusiasm.  What great energy!  Kathy practically danced while she drew;   Theresa was writing something;  and behind me I could hear Roy’s charcoal.

Colleen had some good music in the background, and some refreshments on the counter, and Heather was pointing out shapes and shadows.

The woman from Chicago sat on the floor, some artists were seated on chairs, some stood at easels.  I tell you, it doesn’t get much better than this!

Studio b.‘s tagline is  “Be creative, Be adventurous, Be inspired,” and  I feel all of those things when I am there and afterwards!  How lucky am I!

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Figure Drawing: The Illusion of Depth, continued

We continued to work with creating the illusion of depth in our figure drawing session at Studio b. again this week.  Instructor Heather Clements reviewed the 4 ways we had been practicing:   size and perspective or foreshortening, degree of development, Mach bands, and value or color contrast.  Our model held a long pose at the end of the session, and I focused on her face in my final drawing.

I love when a face shows elements of one’s life, giving a glimpse of the joys and laughter over the years, and sometimes the pain and fatigue.  This model has a novel in her face.  I wish I had the skill to do it justice.

I drew slowly on this night.  From the beginning of the session to the end I was frustrated with how quickly the poses were over.  I had difficulty clearing my head.  This week marks  the beginning of tourist season here in sunny Northwest  Florida, when my pool service business, my day job, starts occupying my mind 24/7.

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Figure Drawing from Warm-Up to Extended Pose

I arrived at the Figure Drawing session fairly exhausted this week, being in the middle of teaching a 2½ day crash course for one of my businesses (a certification course for operators of public swimming pools).  Counting me, only 3 artists were there at Studio b., plus the instructor, Heather Clements, and the owner, Colleen Duffley.  The model was unable to make it, so Heather modeled for us without disrobing.

It takes me a while to “learn” a new figure’s shape and proportions.  I focused on contours the whole night.  In this post I have decided to show examples of my work throughout the whole session, from initial 1-minute and 2-minute gestures to the final 20-minute line drawings.  Clicking on the picture will give an enlarged view.

As usual, though I arrived exhausted, I left energized by the thrill of expression.

Collection of Briana Sanderson
Collection of Briana Sanderson

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Website Challenges

OK, now you get to see how I can mess up my web-guy’s fine work.  I moved a bunch of sketches from my Figure Drawing Gallery to Sketches and Gestures, and although both slide shows progress correctly, the thumbnails shift on every other slide.   This kind of thing just stops my right-brain dead in its tracks!  “Oh W-a-r-r-r-r-r-r-e-n!”

So why have two categories?  The Figure Drawing Gallery contains pieces I would show.  The “Sketches and Gestures” section contains pieces I probably would never show, but that I haven’t thrown away yet.  Sketches and gestures sometimes have more of a sense of immediacy and intimacy, even though they are probably done hurriedly and might contain serious inaccuracies.

How do I decide what to keep and what to throw out?  The initial decision is easy, because most of what I do are warm-up drawings, and practice pieces, or compositional planning.  Many are not even recognizable, and since I prefer representational art, recognition is important to me.  Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but for me, it is all about whether the piece keeps my attention, in that I want to look at it for longer, and look at it more often, as opposed to looking at it and saying ‘Yeah, OK, that’s pretty,” and just moving on without a second glance.

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Figure Drawing with Non-Dominant Hand

Drawn with Left-Hand

A few weeks ago at our weekly figure drawing session at Studio b, our exercise was to draw with our non-dominant hand.  I stayed with the exercise for the entire 2½-hour session.

Although I had attended many figure drawing classes for my undergraduate area of emphasis, I had never before drawn with my left hand.  It was grueling.  I had no hand-eye coordination.  My right hand will usually draw the approximate angle for the intended distance while I am just looking at the model, but when I was drawing with my left hand, I had to watch my hand to see what on earth it was doing.

Having no fine-motor control, I found myself gripping the daylights out of the crayon.  In fact I broke every implement I used, by holding it so tightly.  But interestingly, even though my line-quality on each finished drawing was jerky, the proportions and masses were basically correct, perhaps even better than when drawing with my dominant hand.  No doubt I was forced to a greater degree of observation.

And I found myself reaching for crayons and colors that I rarely use, free to experiment, since I had low expectations.

I was surprised to find a different appeal to the pieces I produced.