Portrait Class

Drawings from the first of ten portrait classes, please with number two, found drawing the older gentlemen easier than the young lady.

1) 10 minute study in charcoal, with more time  I would have worked on the chin and the lips.

2) In the  second pose (20 minutes, charcoal)  I have more of a three quarter view than a profile which I was pleased about. Lips gave me problems here initially, didn't have them following the form of the face

3) 25 minutes charcoal, time to switch models, yes the models' nose was long...

4) 50 minutes (charcoal)  need to correct the right hand corner and line of the mouth, needs to move up towards the eyes slightly

Exercise - Fleeting moments

Quick sketches of people commuting, train going home... don't think anybody guessed what I was doing, but this game limits the amount of time you can spend observing your subject

 

Exhibition visited - George Bellows

Visited the George Bellows exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts this week, looked forward to seeing his painting of boxers in the flesh but was surprised that I came away feeling I had a preference for his drawings rather than his paintings.

One in particular I liked was Election Night, Times square ... sense of movement and crowds with no more than roughly ten people rendered with any real detail in the foreground. Also liked in this drawing the balance of tone, leaning towards the dark  (I guess it is election night) which allows him to pull out areas of light, for example the projected light in the centre and the street lamp in the foreground.

Also liked the drawing entitled Street Fight, the stance of the one of the boys about to fight telling you exactly what you needed to know in order to read the situation.

If I was forced to put a couple of his painting on my lounge wall, then I would opt  for  Little Girl in White, 1907 (large portrait of a girl in what appears to be very few big loose brush strokes) and Rain on the River, 1908 (again like the expressive mark making employed here and the minimal use of colour... I like grey in my paintings). Could probably find room for  Pennsylvania Excavation, 1907, too... yes definitely preferred his early works

My oil pastel study of Rain on the River

Exercise - Three drawings

Figure lying down, drawn in charcoal. Paper covered in charcoal first to create a mid-tone that can then be drawn into with an eraser to bring out the highlights.

Didn't have the best position in the room, lower legs not in view, but feel the drawing conveys the rise of the left leg. Poor model lying on the floor boards, liked the fact that the direction of the boards run in the opposite direction to the legs /body so included in the final drawing.



Figure sitting down in with one leg out stretched across a second chair. Figure square onto me, once again feeling I had drawn the short straw when it came to the position from which I was viewing the model.

In this drawing unlike the 1st I didn't achieve the same degree of finish across the whole figure. Having sketched in the figure having initial marked out where I believed the key points of the figure to be (shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles) I focused my attention on the face, redrawn to reflect  a three quarter view that was not quite right in my first attempt.  Both drawings took around fifty minutes to complete.


Self portrait of me standing, furniture in the room meant  I had to stand closer to the mirror  than I would have liked which has introduced some foreshortening, head at eye level but looking down my body towards my feet. Started with charcoal and then added some detail with a 2B pencil

Spent about forty minutes on the drawing and got to a point where I felt it said as much as it needed to... I need to lose a few pounds.

Exercise - Fabric with line and form

For this exercise I decided to start with a pillow, fewer indents/folds. Started with a pencil but soon introduced charcoal as I felt this would speed up the process (not very patient), allowing me to quickly block in the darker tones.

I think the drawing reflects the form of the pillow, helped by the strong light source. Not entirely happy with the rendering at the end of the pillow, right hand side... could make it clearer which fold of material overlays which.

Sea Scout's scarf and woggle, this one done in a combination of pencil and colour pencil

Sea Scout's scarf and woggle, this one done in oil pastel. 

I think both drawings of the scarf reflect the qualities of fabric but perhaps I need to use a bigger piece of material to demonstrate more of the various types of folds.

Pipe fold: Pipe shaped fold
Diaper fold: Two tension points closer together than the cloth is wide
Zig-zag fold: Crumbled sleeve, back of leg of trouser
Spiral fold: Folds wrapped around a form
Half-lock fold: Material turns back on itself
Drop fold: Drop fold vertical pipe fold (curtains)
Insert Fold: No underlying activity, such as the above scrunched scarf

Exercise - Essential elements

Here I have drawn six ten minutes studies of my daughter, given the time  allowed to complete drawings I have not corrected the areas that I was not happy with, but made sure I had enough time to put the marks down to define the figure and capture the tone.

In all six drawings I feel there is a strong presence of tone and as such sense of the light source.


In this picture I can see issue with the length of the head and how the shoulder nearest to the viewer meets the neck, sense of form suffers because of this.

This my second drawing which I believe, out of the six, is the most successful in terms of the  proportions and the application of tone.

Pleased with this drawing, possibly lighten the hand under the chin

Torso to small, position and length of arm nearest to the viewer could do with a some adjustment

Foot needs to be a lot bigger here

Shape of face not correct but happy the the  rendering of tone on the face and how the hands have turned out. This is probably my favourite pose, leaning slightly forward in the chair with hands crossed/touching.