Tag: light

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Figure Drawing: Tension vs. Relaxation

Sometimes I am bone tired when I get to my regular weekly figure drawing session after a full day of work.  Last night was like that.  But it never fails, after the first half hour of drawing, I am energized again.  Is it me?  Is it being in the good company of other like-minded artists, like Betty Cork and Steve Wagner and Heather Clements?  Is it the amazing creative atmosphere of Colleen Duffley‘s  Studio b.?  All of the above, I suppose, plus a model who is invested in the process, who works hard for us, as all of our models do.

After the usual series of warm-up gestures from 30-seconds to a few minutes, figure drawing instructor Heather Clements suggested that we focus on where the figure was showing tension, and where it was showing relaxation, and to draw the two aspects differently, perhaps exaggerating the contrast between the two.  She suggested that the parts of the figure under tension might be drawn with straighter, shorter lines and more angular shapes, with more abrupt changes in quality and direction, while the more relaxed parts would be smoother, with longer lines and less angular shapes.  I can’t say that my drawings actually show that intention, but I was trying to be conscious of it as I drew.  As always when I am learning something new, I will have to sit down and do some practice drawings, thinking about it non-stop, in order for it to become habit.

I have posted some of my gestures and drawings from throughout the evening.  Nupastel and graphite are still my favorite media.  A close floodlight, positioned low, put strong highlights and dark cast-shadows on the model.
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Figure Drawing with Pencil Wash

Watercolor Pencil Wash, 5 x 7

I rarely use color to show “local color”, that is, the actual color of the model’s skin and hair.  I have more fun when I draw light and shadow.  But this week the model at Studio b. wore a red slip that caught the light in exquisite ways.  Red just demands to be noticed.

I warmed up with nupastel and conte, switching to watercolor pencils and washable graphite on hot press watercolor paper.  Hot press is very smooth paper.  Wet color pushes around on it very easily, since there is no texture to catch onto the pigment.

It was a fun night, with a new model.  She gave us many challenging poses, especially when we were warming up.  Usually our models are fully nude, because only by drawing the nude do you get practice in seeing how the whole figure is put together.  I think all my practice has made drawing a clothed model easier.  It was easier to “see” the form beneath the clothes.

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Seeing in Black and White

This week in Figure Drawing at Studio b., Heather Clements instructed us to focus on light patterns and shadow patterns.  We worked with strong lighting, toning only the darks, all the same value, and leaving the paper untoned to show the lighted areas.  This high contrast lighting is very powerful, with much of the drawing reading as a silhouette.  Heather directed us to add intermediate values in our later drawings.  She kept a strong light on the model throughout the session.

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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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Opposite Points of View: Figure Drawing at Studio b.

Joan Vienot: Nupastel on Gray
Heather Clements: Ink and Wash

I was a few minutes late getting to figure drawing at Studio b. this week.  All the “good spots” were taken so I set up my easel in the last available place.

But then, what a treat, to find that the way the light was coming in through the window and backlighting the model, he was fairly glowing, for every pose.  My “less-than-perfect” easel location gave me poses with silver linings.

For this pose, I drew the strong highlights with white on gray paper, and then worked in the dark values with black, leaving the gray paper showing for some of the midtones.

Heather Clements was drawing on the opposite side of the room, so her poses were almost completely brightly lit, with the shadow pattern of the window bars criss-crossing the model.  One of her drawings is at right.  This is one of the fun aspects of figure drawing — the same pose, drawn at the same time, will be markedly different from one artist to the next.  The multiple points of view provide a more complete appreciation of the form and the conditions experienced by the artists as a group.