Figure Drawing: Week Twelve

This week was all about costume! As usual, we had some gesture-time at the beginning of class and I actually had quite a few gestures that I liked. We then we had two really long poses focusing on costume. It was hard! Hopefully next week (the last day of class!) I can churn out some drawings that I think are really successful so I can end this semester on a high note! :)

We had one sustained pose for the whole class period (so like 2-2.5 hours). Those are always crazy! After about an hour or so I've completely run out of things to do with my drawing. Oh well-- it's a good learning tool I guess.

The last picture is blurry (sorry about that) so I included the closer-up version that came out more clearly.

This was the other really long sustained pose we did. This one was particularly difficult because the dress that the model was wearing was very heavy and didn't really have any distinct folds to draw. So it ended up looking pretty flat. I wasn't too happy with it so I decided to experiment with different mediums and styles for the rest of the pose.

I decided to move away from the realism I was attempting with the last one and decided to go for a more stylized approach with this quick charcoal version.

I reverted to graphite for this one. Graphite is just such a good, old friend.

This one was done in Conte (my preference for gestures and such) in the last two minutes before class got out.

Figure Drawing: Week Eleven

This week we worked on drapery. Drapery is quite fun and pretty difficult. SO MANY FOLDS!!! We did a couple drawings where we drew the model in the pose without drapery and then in the same pose with it. Those were pretty cool since we were able to see exactly how the form underneath affects the cloth. Anyway, here they are! :)

(perhaps you could tell that I was having a really weirdly bad day with heads/faces... haha)

In the last 2 minutes of class I whipped up this quick pencil gesture because I had spent the whole class period being really precise and tight with all the folds and I wanted to do something loose. And as usual, I liked it just about as much as the one I spent forever on. Haha

And... this is a boy in my class. I just love caricaturing my classmates! :D

Sketchbook: Hands and Feet

So here are a few of the hand and feet drawings that I did in my sketchbook (that I forgot to upload with the rest of those drawings)!

Candle Girl: Long-term Photoshop Practice

I started this piece as an exercise in realism and color months and months ago. I was planning on it being a rather lengthy project but I forgot about it after a while. I remembered it and finished it up in the last couple of days, so here it is!

This isn't a piece which is meant to strengthen my creativity or anything. I was strictly replicating a photo reference. I used the eyedropper tool to get the exact colors from the photo and putting them on my drawing so while I wasn't creatively coming up with color choices I was able to see and acknowledge the many different shades. Who knew there were so many shades in one cheek or shoulder?! :) So I think it was still pretty helpful. And fun!

I also did a "Step-by-step" thing as I went in case any of you would like to see that. (I also did it just because I thought it was interesting for my own benefit, but I will share it with you :) )

Figure Drawing: Week Ten

This week we worked on legs a bit more and then moved onto... FEET. Faces are hard and hands are quite hard-- but feet have always been my nemesis. Thank goodness my teacher is so awesome at explaining anatomy and such! There were a couple feet drawings that I thought turned out decently (much to my surprise) so it wasn't completely aggravating! :D

As I predicted, female legs were much harder to draw.

I feel like one of my most successful feet I drew was the one I did for this pose where we were just drawing legs. We hadn't even talked about feet at this point! C'est la vie!

(I got tired of gestures so I drew just legs for two poses-- male legs are just so much easier so it made me feel better about myself haha)

And... here we go.

What a difficult perspective this was! Feet just don't look like feet when you are looking at them straight-on in this position.

(Sorry this picture didn't turn out very well-- graphite on newsprint doesn't like being photographed)