Figure Drawing

pencil and white chalk on Bugra paper
20 x 30ish

More in my continuing effort to improve or at least maintain my drawing skills. I really do like doing these larger, more finished drawings. They take some time, but that's all right. I think it's time well spent.

I still can't decide if I like this Bugra paper or not. It's awfully soft and rough for my taste. Still it holds up to erasing pretty well and it does take pencil nicely as long as it's a nice sharp pencil. And then there's the fact that I still have quite a bit of it left.

A Pile of Portraits

Let's look at a few more drawings this week. Instead of full figures maybe some portraits for a change. And just to mix it up, how about a variety of media. I may use all the labels today.

Why do I use different media? Sometimes it's a matter of size. Silverpoint is good for smaller things, charcoal works better bigger, in my case at least, and pencil works for everything. Sometimes it's just a matter of, "I haven't done one of those in a while." Perhaps not the best of reasons, but it's all I got.


Pencil on Stonehenge paper


Charcoal heightened with white chalk


Silverpoint heightened with white gouache

This is me after all. There has to be a silverpoint drawing.

And for those who are wondering if I have forgotten how to paint.


Oil on canvas
16 x 12

I had a tough time photographing this one. Hope I got the correct picture.

As it turns out these are actually pretty good likenesses. You might recognize a couple of the models. The last is Elandria. She's been here at least twice before. And the first is Jessica who you might recognize from some earlier portrait studies. Thanks to all my lovely models.

He's Baaaaaack

He's back. What's happening? Has hell frozen over, is it a cold day in July? That can't be it, it's pushing 100 and besides it's August. Maybe I just finally got around to taking some pictures, and it just seems like a good idea to start up again. So here goes.

Ever wonder what goes on during these long breaks? What's that, you don't. Just as well since nothing exciting has been happening. So let's come at this from a different direction.

I operate on the assumption that one can never draw too well. Since I'm nowhere close to drawing too well and actually testing that assumption, I draw a lot. I do quick sketches that no one will ever see and a fair number of pretty highly finished studies. Let's start off this rebirth with some figure drawing.

Why draw figures? Why not? When it comes to drawing practice anything will do, the important thing is to do it and observe and record carefully. If you draw a tree or a pile of fabric you can get away with a certain amount of errors. Does that branch really go in that direction? If you really pay attention and do a careful study those errors won't be there and it suddenly makes absolutely no difference what you draw. With a figure though, there is less latitude. While bodies do vary, an error in proportions will just look wrong. There is a constant battle to render a solid 3-dimensional form that actually looks like a figure with all the right pieces in the right places.

So that's why I do this kind of figure drawing. Fairly tightly rendered and studied to the best of my ability. Ideally that ability will continue to improve, that is the object of practice after all.

Both of these drawings are pencil on Stonehenge paper in the 30 x 22 inch range. Given that size, pencil may not have been the best choice of medium, but it gets the job done even if it does take a while. I rather like the idea of having a drawing that I can go back to and chew on until it has been carried to the degree of finish desired. When doing one of these I always think back to my school days when a teaching assistant informed my that no one likes doing careful drawings like this. Well, I do.

Behind the Veil - Pencil vs Silverpoint

People occasionally comment on how many different media I use, oil, watercolor, egg tempera, and a bunch of different drawing media. They'll ask how I decide which to use on a particular piece. Sometimes it's just a matter of what I feel like. Right now I'm thinking I haven't done a watercolor in a while so I'll probably dust them off and do some. But sometimes there actually is a good reason for using one medium over another.

Each medium has it's strong points and weaknesses. Let's look at some drawing media this time, specifically silverpoint as opposed to pencil. They are very similar in a number of ways, and I tend to use them in about the same manner with a couple exceptions. Silverpoint is difficult at best to erase so what you put down, be prepared to live with. No going back to pick out highlights with an eraser. Pencil is a quicker medium, good for sketching and exploring a form. It's really a more forgiving and versatile medium. Pictures are worth a thousand words and that's good because I'm much better with images than words, so on to the pictures.


Silverpoint on blue gray prepared paper

Silverpoint, to me, is best used for something like this, small and intimate. It holds details well although that isn't particularly important in this drawing. The down side is you can't produce a very dark tone. As a result they won't capture your attention from across the room. So don't try, play to its strengths. The pale gray lines produced by a silver wire will give a very sensitive treatment of the subject. As the silver tarnishes the drawing will become slightly warmer further adding to intimacy. It's a very subtle warming that you really won't notice happening. You'll feel it more than see it. I've talked a lot about silverpoint in earlier posts, no need repeating myself any more than I already have.


Pencil heightened with white chalk on gray laid paper

So here we have a similar subject. It's slightly bigger (the silverpoint is about actual size in the larger view) and the paper is darker, but still similar. The major difference is in the treatment. A pencil allows for much darker values letting me create an image where the figure emerges from the shadows. I couldn't have done this with silverpoint simply because silverpoint won't give me a dark that dark, but with pencil -- no problem. The choice for pencil here was an easy one.

Let's say I had done the second one in silverpoint, the darks would have been about as dark as the paper, maybe another step darker, but that's it. I might have made that work, but instead of a dark, mysterious piece it would have been much airier, more like a cloud than a shadow. It would have had a completely different feel and not what I was going for at all. Somebody is probably thinking that I could have done the first one in pencil. It wouldn't have looked that much different and probably would have been easier. That may well be true. So why silverpoint over the more versatile pencil? It's largely a matter of feel that doesn't translate well to photography much less the net. Besides I felt like it and I have a lot of silver wire to use up.

Hand Studies

Many people find hands to be the most difficult part of the human form to draw, and I'll agree they can be. Unfortunately they are also one of the most expressive parts of the body too, so learning to draw them is pretty much a necessity. So what tips do I have for drawing them? None at all other than practice, practice, practice. Sorry no real words of wisdom here, but I'm open to suggestions. That being said I do take my own advice, and I do a lot of hand studies. The following examples are all kind of old now. (My camera bought the farm and the scanner isn't much better, so for the next few weeks there will either be older things or nothing at all.)


pencil heightened white white chalk

This is the oldest one of the bunch. Hopefully these will show some improve with time. It is a study for a larger piece that I never got around to doing. Maybe someday, but until now the hands are all that exist.


pencil heightened with white chalk

Another study for a larger oil, this one was done. This study is actually a good example of why it is good to do studies. Not only do you work out any potential problems before the actual final work begins, but you may wind up with a nice piece in itself. People love to see the process leading up to the final work. In this case the study was bought by a violin teacher. Apparently my model has perfect technique, and the teacher wanted to use this as an example of what should be done. Really more of a compliment to my model who is a wonderful violist than to me, but I did wind up with two sales instead of one.


silverpoint heightened with white chalk

You might remember a similar piece back in the beginning of this blog. This one, like that one, is really more of a stand alone piece. It was never meant to grow up into something bigger. Just a practice piece that works pretty well all by itself.

cast drawings

I thought I would post a few of these drawings since I haven't had a chance to photograph anything new. About a year ago I decided to sharpen my drawing skills. So I started doing drawings of Bargue plates. I don't have access to the actual plates, but the book is pretty good. Having said that, none of these are from it. They're all stashed away in sketch books, and getting the paper to lay flat for a photo is just more trouble than it's worth. These drawings are fairly similar though.


pencil
This is one of the earlier drawings. The paper was a bit rougher than it should have been. There's just more "noise" than I would have liked. Live and learn right? You may think the nose is kind of funky too. It was actually broken off, so it's not really funky, it's just gone.


pencil
The paper problem has been corrected here. I think this one is fairly successful. One of the problems I have with the Bargue plates is the lighting. As I understand it the casts were purposely lit to minimize reflected lights. So you have a light, a dark and a transition tone which, to me, results in a flatter than necessary image. On this one I worked from a photo of the sculpture that I downloaded from the Louvre site. In the Bargue book there is also a plate of this same sculpture. At the risk of dislocating my shoulder while patting myself on the back, I like my version better.


charcoal
This is just a bigger version of the same kind of drawings, this time in charcoal.

I don't know that anyone would consider these great art, the originals are, but these drawings, not so much. They weren't really meant to be. They were meant to be practice pieces designed to train the hand and eye. Look, see, draw, then check keeping the drawing as close to the image being copied as possible. Once you get good at rendering from two dimensions to two dimensions start doing the same thing except this time work from life, from a three dimensional object, maybe a real cast. Sound boring? Maybe, but if you want to really polish your drawing it works, and if its done right it works pretty fast.

Cookie Kitty

Pencil with white chalk on tan Stonehenge paper
10 x 7

Pencil with white chalk on tan Stonehenge paper
10 x 7

The internet can be a wonderful place. You can meet people from all over the world. This particular person is Australian. That's about as far from my home as you can get without leaving the planet, and yet I still consider her a friend. She's also one of my favorite model/photographers. As you can see she can be very expressive making for great material for character studies.

Story Teller

pencil
8 x 8

A post or so ago I mentioned that ink, silverpoint and pencil were my favorite drawing media, so it occurred to me that maybe I should post a pencil drawing. So here's a pencil drawing.

This guy has a great face. It just cried out for a character study to be done. I took a few pictures of him one day while he was telling stories and making arrow heads (he's a flint knapper actually, but I liked the stories). We were sitting under a tree on a nice fall day having a fine time, and it never occurred to me that the bail of hay I was sitting on might be full of ticks. Well, it seems I took a few of them home with me along with the reference photos.