Life Drawings and Studies

[Analoxe]

Hi everyone! For lack of any discreet place to post my figure drawings, I’ve decided to create a thread here to keep track of my progress and to gain feedback. Mostly there will be figure drawings, studies and maybe a painting or other assignment. I’m going try and post most of what I create, whether or not I like it.

First off, I’m book/self-taught. Second, I’m not happy with the level I’m at and my figures need a ton of work. I’m currently in college (but I’m certainly not as young as most of my classmates!), and between figure drawing class, uninstructed figure drawing sessions and local sessions, usually I can rake in a significant amount of figure drawing a week. However, all the feedback I receive in class is usually a: “looks good” or “darken that shadow.” I’ve been very frustrated by the lack of constructive criticism given to me by my teacher so I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to post my stuff here and see what you guys have to say. As of a few weeks ago I have started taking private lessons from a local artist (and also a fellow CA.org member ) and he has been giving me some excellent critiques and I’m hoping that will help my progress as well.

I’m going attempt to post once every week this summer and frequently next semester, provided I don’t get too busy during school.

Some of my first images will be a little dark, so I do apologize. Anyway, on with the art!

[Analoxe]

This is graphite done on white canson drawing paper. ~1.5 hrs.

Also graphite on white canson. ~1-2 hrs.

Charcoal on rough newsprint.



Graphite on white Canson ~2 hrs.



Below are two minute gestures. Charcoal on rough newsprint and some pencil on newsprint.





Some 5 minute pencil gestures on canson and some 2 min. charcoal gestures on rough newsprint.



Graphite on newsprint from various 2 min. gestures.





More to come later.

[Analoxe]

As always, I'm excited to post my stuff this week!



Graphite on Canson drawing paper. ~2 hrs.
I was deeply influenced by Anthony Ryder’s Figure Drawing book and when I attempted this pose I tried to replicate his pencil shading. Probably not a bad try given the amount of time I had, but I was kind of bummed I didn’t finish the head. My teacher has been telling me about the mistakes that students make and one of them is “the broken arm.” Now that I look at this picture, it’s pretty obvious that I’m guilty as charged because the forearm appears to be completely bent and its shape is incorrect.



Graphite on Canson drawing paper ~2 hrs.
This is all crosshatching and I think it turned out okay as far as the surface of her skin goes. I did however make her body too small, and I’m probably in need of a better way to render her hair.



Graphite on Canson drawing paper and charcoal on the same. Both ~20 min. ea.
In the right hand picture you can see I made another beginner mistake, squishing a foot into the picture. I don’t think I was aware of the smallness of her leg and foot while I was drawing it. I really should have stepped back from the easel before I went that far so that I could judge my space.



This was one of my first attempts at drawing a portrait. It is charcoal on rough newsprint, ~2 hrs.
Her neck is really long, and I faced some doubt about how to approach the shading of her chest.



Charcoal on rough newsprint ~10 mins.
I rather like the way that this picture turned out.



Attempt at a profile in graphite on drawing paper. ~30 min.

Now Gestures! From 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Charcoal on rough newsprint.

[Analoxe]

Gestures –charcoal on rough newsprint and as usual, 2 min. each.
I wonder if maybe I should focus more on just the lines of action rather than the form of the model when I do my gestures. Also, I’m wondering if maybe I’ve been exaggerating the models curves too much.





Long pose, about 3 hours and pencil on regular Canson drawing paper. There are all kinds of problems with this picture that I can see clearly now. I don’t really think I was doing my best that night. Her neck looks like a disjointed tube and her arm is looking furry.



I spent maybe 45 minutes or so on this closeup of the models face. I really like portraits, and I’d like to become better at them. Neither of these ended up looking much like the model.



Charcoal drawing done in class, about an hour and 30 minutes on rough newsprint. I remember really liking how this turned out although she does look a little possessed and her skin kind of looks like crinkled paper.




Here are some studies that were homework for my private drawing class. The apple and lightbulb were doctored by my teacher a little bit. These studies are charcoal on smooth newsprint. Each one took about 30 minutes each. My teacher told me that I don’t make my halftones dark enough, I make my ellipses look kind of like footballs, and I outline everything waaay too much. It’s true, I love outlines even though I know that there is no place for them in realistic drawing. It’s just another bad habit of mine! The last picture is of a small quickly drawn cast study (my very first). I’m now working on a longer drawing of the same cast and it’s incredibly difficult!

[Analoxe]

Hello everyone, thanks for the “thanks!”
For the next few weeks I’ll be posting mostly gestures. I’m on an extended summer break visiting my family and I won’t be returning to my private classes for about a month and a half. However, my teacher has given me plenty of study material and I’ve brought along Juliet Aristides’ book, Lessons in Classical Drawing.

All of these gestures are charcoal on rough newsprint. These are all quick, 2-5 min.









This laying pose was probably about 45 minutes. I was nervous when we started on it, because a pose where the model is laying down on a flat surface always seems like the most difficult to capture correctly. But I think it turned out okay and I like the way the light on the model gets darker as she recedes. Looking at it now though, I should have gone darker with the values and she seems to be floating. I didn't focus very much on the background.

[Analoxe]

Okay so I kind of took a long break from posting, but I didn't mean to! Visiting my family brought on a lot of responsibilities and some unexpected events that I got caught up in. Not only that, but while I was there I was looking at some of the life drawings that I did many years ago and I started to become overwhelmed by the feeling of how little I have progressed. Some of the drawings I completed years ago seem to look better than what I've been doing now, so that was rather discouraging. Maybe some time I will post a few of those old drawings, but not now. School starts this month as do my private classes, so all I can do is keep on practicing and brush aside feelings of discouragement.

Newsprint and charcoal gestures, a few doodles:





Some class experimentation with mass gestures:



We did a few exercises where we had to continuously draw gestures of the model where they moved from one location to another.



This is pencil on drawing paper, probably about 2 hours or so. We had to draw the models and use crosshatching. I absolutely love crosshatching but it takes a long time to do properly. And yes, one of the models head was behind this big scrunched up piece of paper, so it looks like she's been cut off!



This is Brown chalk on drawing paper. I've learned that chalk is super messy and if you don't fix it immediately, the stuff just gets everywhere!



This too is chalk in shades of greys, black and white on toned pastel paper. It's a little cartoony looking, but overall I think I did an okay job.



Ink on watercolor paper. I'd like to use ink in a drawing on my own, but in class it was hard to make stuff look good with it because you had to wait a long time for it to dry.

[Analoxe]

Today I have lots of gestures to post. Did I ever mention how I'm hoping that our teacher this semester doesn't make us do so many gestures?
I know they are important but at the same time, I really do love the longer poses.

Charcoal on rough newsprint, each pose 30 sec - 2 min.








This one is a longer pose, maybe 15 min.



An exercise involving a skeleton and a model posing on the base of the platform. ~1.5 hrs.



This was an exercise where we had to get the measurements of the skeleton on paper as close as we could to the real thing.
We used string for sighting and measuring. This was ~1hr.



And finally we got to do some close-up portraits! My favorite thing. I did one of my teacher and it was horrible so I'm not going to post it.
But I really liked the way this portrait of one of the female models came out. Took about an hour I think. I should start writing down how long it takes me to do these,
but I often forget to.

[Uziel]

Very nice.
Only thing i can come up with is your figures are enclosed in heavy line work. Maybe try and be more expressive in your lines & interruptions.

Challenge yourself with different medium.
The approach of the figure can be different - working with values and planes instead of lines.
Check out this video of G. Pratt.
https://vimeo.com/18514199

[Analoxe]

Hi Guys! Posting early this week because I'll be going out of town tomorrow. School begins next week and I am excited, nervous and of course really wish that I had accomplished during this summer.

Uziel - Thanks for the comment and the link! Yes, it's true that I do focus a lot on lines. This has been noticed by several of my teachers and my current one told me pretty bluntly that while lines are fun, there's really no place for them in the realm of academic drawing. I agree with him, although it's been hard to let them go when I've relied on them for so long. He's helping me to focus more on the way the light turns on a form and different values on planes.
My other problem is that I tend to not use a full value scale.

And now the art:










I did this portrait at the uninstructed college life drawing session. It probably took about the whole time- about 3 hours or so (and it's in charcoal). After listening to my private teacher tell me about how light drops off the farther down it is from the source, I think I realize that at the time I did this then I wasn't paying attention to how her bust should have been darker (because it was farther away from the light).



The bottom of the portrait should be a lot darker than what it is and that is why I prefer a cropped version of it. In fact, I probably should have just stopped at her shoulders and not gone farther down, like so:

[The Enlightened One]

I like a lot of your figures. I think the most one I like the most was the cross-hatched one that took you a while. To me, I think that you did an excellent job in identifying the planes of the figure. I would continue to simply the shapes and forms of the figure so you have your most basic structure establish first. Once that seems right, work on developing the details.

I'm sure you know that already and have a very wise mentor. Keep up the good work!

[jetpack42]

Hey, you've got a lot of quality work. It's great that you are practicing so much.

One thing I have noticed is sometimes in quick gestures, you draw a lot more details before you get the lower legs/feet in the gesture. It may help you to practice on some leg/feet anatomy to solidify your understanding and confidence.

I was also going to mention the lines, and lines are not a bad thing, but you just have to understand when and how to use them. If you heavily outline everything, it gives it a cartoony look. Some people can make beautiful drawings like this. Mucha used a lot of lines, and his drawings are lovely. But if you want more depth, and more atmosphere, you've got to see the outlines as edges just like you see the internal form as edges. You're looking for the edges of the shadows, but also look for the edges of one form into the next one. I am light skinned, if I hold up my hand against a light object, the edges are soft. My light hand against the light background. If I hold my hand against a dark background, the edges are harder, because there is more contrast.

Keep up the good work!

[Analoxe]

Hi everyone!

The Enlightened One- Thanks for the kind words! I’m glad you like that one, I love crosshatching so maybe that helped me to be more attuned to the planes of the models.

jetpack42- I’m thrilled that you’ve posted on my thread! I really enjoy your work and it’s a great inspiration to me. Looking back on my stuff, I think you’re right about the feet. I will try to give more attention to them and study them like you suggest. Same goes for the outlines. I don’t know what it is about outlining stuff, I think it must be leftover from the things I used to draw as a teenager. It’s probably been the number one most difficult bad habit for me to break since I’ve started studying realistic & academic drawing. I think I might do it a lot because unconsciously I view outlines as a “quick-fix” to giving a character defining characteristics (like quickly drawing on a nose, eyes, mouth, etc.) Whatever my problem may be, I’ll work on ditching the lines in future drawings. Thanks!

tharindhu018- Thanks for the compliment on my work!


So I should probably entitle this post as “futile attempts.” I had planned on posting these drawings, then didn’t want to, but decided to anyway because I figure that they might be useful in analyzing the mistakes that I’ve made and continue to make.

First though, are my weekly gestures. Charcoal on rough newsprint, you know the deal!




The tough thing is that while you are working on a picture, you may not realize the mistake you are making until days or months later when you look back and analyze it. In the first picture, I realize now that I should have lightened the background and darkened her skin. I’m not particularly proud of the other two, either.



Now for these. I think I may have done these at the beginning of the semester and I can see some of the mistakes that I’ve made. When you practice a lot and then look back at your old work and see the mistakes- that is one of my most favorite feelings in the world! Sure you may feel a little dumb that you made such a hideous picture that once you were so proud of. However, just knowing that you can now spot those mistakes means that you are growing and starting to truly see things and it is that growth that excites me.

Okay, enough talk! So I messed up all 3 of these pictures. The woman’s body is completely out of proportion and her anatomy is quite off. Same goes for the guy next to her. I did the charcoal drawing on toned paper during a long pose and completely worked myself into a problem by mishandling the white and ditching the halftones. Working with white charcoal on toned paper is something that I need to work at more. (Among everything else, ha!)



I remember being quite proud of this portrait. Eager to repeat the success of my charcoal portrait in my last post, the next week I tried to follow the same formula. Once again I ended up completely ruining her bust just like the first time! Plus I put some strange eraser marks into the space above her head. So once again, it looks better cropped. I think that I would be able to handle this portrait much better with the knowledge I have now about how dark shadows really are and the way light dissipates the further the form gets from the light source.




Since I feel a little down about posting images that are rather embarrassing, I’ll post a picture that I actually kind of like. I did this during a 4 hour pose. When I arrived at the studio I was late and it was crowded. I ended up with the least wanted spot, where I could barely see the models body and it looked as if she was emerging from some abyss. So I decided that I would just go for the arms and head. She was rather androgynous, and I wasn’t really sure if I would be able to capture her likeness very well. Well it turns out I really like this picture. I’m not sure exactly why, but I think I just executed the shadows on her face pretty well. My roommate told me that she thinks it looks kind of strange, so maybe I’m the only one who likes it. Oh well! It’s charcoal on toned paper.



I might stop posting for a little while after next week, only because school has begun and I need a little bit of time to build up stuff to post here. The great thing about having this thread is receiving everyone’s feedback so I can start using it the advice immediately.

[dirtywhirl]

Your portraits are the strongest and this is where most of your attention seems to go to which is great since you have already mentioned that you want to do portraiture. Your recent gestures are a bit looser, the most recent batch of them are a bit stiff but getting more flow (or flowy i dunno )

keep the thread alive is all I ask!

[Analoxe]

Pwwka- Thanks for the compliment! Yeah I've always felt like my gestures aren't very animated. I really need to go back to the basics and probably study the lines of action in bodies, if that makes sense.
-

Hey everyone, I thought I would post some of the drawings that I meant to a while back. I’ll resume posting drawings at winter break, after the school semester is over. Some bad news though! This semester my school was not able to have their usual weekly open studio life drawing sessions and not only that, but a local studio I frequent also had to reschedule their sessions to a time when I have to work. So I’m afraid I won’t have much stuff to post. The next closest place to go is the Scottsdale artist’s school, but sadly I haven’t been able to make it there yet.

The other thing that frustrates me is that my current lifedrawing teacher at campus said we are only allowed to construct our figures with crosshatching and outlining. Which stinks because I was hoping to focus on value using my rag. Everyone already says I outline everything to death. The funny thing is even though he claims to hate “smudged drawings,” sometimes I still sneak in a little smudging and he ends up liking it. I was really hoping to make use of the freedom to draw the way I like at the uninstructed sessions, but so much for that idea!

Enough complaining and on to the work:

All charcoal on newsprint. These about 10 min:

Block-ins about 20 min:


Hands and foot studies. One is a little wrinkly, sorry about that!


Gestures, 2 min ea:







From a 3 hour session, charcoal on newsprint:


From a four hour session, charcoal on toned paper. The model was rather androgynous and I ended up having to sit in a strange location in the studio, but I actually like how this turned out.


Four hour sessions, charcoal on newsprint. My private instructor helped me a little w/both of these so I can't take all the credit!



Lastly, as a tip I want to suggest a piece of equipment for others who use charcoal pencils a lot. A fellow student showed us a new pencil sharpener he had bought, the Uni KH-20 Hand Crank pencil sharpener made by Mitsubishi. He took a class with David Kassan and said that he uses it as well. I can see why! This sharpener does wonders for keeping charcoal pencils sharp. After you’ve cut the wood of your pencil down by about an inch, you put it in the sharpener and it gives it an extremely sharp point.




I’m by no means here to sell the product, but in terms of being efficient, I no longer have to devote half an hour to just sharpening all of my charcoal pencils. So far it works perfect with all grades of the Generals charcoal pencils, and it worked well with my Pitt Zeichenkohle’s except for Soft (although others say it works well theirs). Anyway, I bought mine off of Jet-Pens. The only downside is that there are no English instructions, but it’s not too hard to figure out how to use. I saw knock-offs made by Creative Mark for sale at Jerry’s, but I’ve never had good luck with any of their products, so I don’t know that I would trust their quality. Hope this helps others not go crazy sharpening pencils for hours! Well, see y'all in december if not earlier.

[Kolbenito]

I like your style with the gesture drawings, especially the ones where you used some value to show the separation between dark and light. To my eye (self taught newb) they look nice, I actually kind of prefer them to the more scribbly traditional gesture drawing.

Your long drawings and portraits are coming along nice. I tend to like the more finished figure drawings and think you are well on the way to making really beautiful ones. Really liked the block-in drawing on post #15 for the 20 minute drawing of the three figures seated at boxes. Is this how you would normally progress into a longer drawing? Reading Tony Ryder's book and Juliette Aristedes latest now so was curious.

On line, maybe varying the thickness and darkness of your line to lose/gain and edge in your quick gestures would have a nice look. You mention it a lot is the only reason I comment on that. Could be fun to experiment.

Keep it up!

[Analoxe]

Kolbenito- Thanks for leaving the comment! Yes, one thing I forget about is line weight when I draw. I really need to work on not only drawing what I see, but also making style choices at the same time. I'm glad you like the longer poses, those are my favorite too. As for how I construct figures, yes I am very much influenced by Anthony Ryder's book and I have one of Aristide's books as well. I discovered Ryder's book at the library a few years ago and the methods he teaches in it like the envelope, angles and negative space were immensely helpful to me. It was like no other instructional drawing book I had seen before! His book opened me up to classical drawing, before that my drawing style was a lot different. So yes, I start with the envelope technique and then refine the shape as quickly as possible. I've been looking into faster ways of figure construction but haven't thoroughly tried any others yet.

And because I can't reply without posting a picture, this is from a 4 hour pose, charcoal on newsprint:

[kevinwueste]

Kolbenito- Thanks for leaving the comment! Yes, one thing I forget about is line weight when I draw. I really need to work on not only drawing what I see, but also making style choices at the same time. I'm glad you like the longer poses, those are my favorite too. As for how I construct figures, yes I am very much influenced by Anthony Ryder's book and I have one of Aristide's books as well. I discovered Ryder's book at the library a few years ago and the methods he teaches in it like the envelope, angles and negative space were immensely helpful to me. It was like no other instructional drawing book I had seen before! His book opened me up to classical drawing, before that my drawing style was a lot different. So yes, I start with the envelope technique and then refine the shape as quickly as possible. I've been looking into faster ways of figure construction but haven't thoroughly tried any others yet.

And because I can't reply without posting a picture, this is from a 4 hour pose, charcoal on newsprint:

Lots of good work happening here. I think as you refine your eye, your measuring acumen and your value decisions/observations you will continue to move on up up up! If you are in Arizona, you are only one (OK - large) state away from my Teacher Tony Ryder - go take a figure or portrait drawing workshop in the summer - you will dig it and what he has to say in person!

-Kevin

[black-swan]

Very nice drawings, there is definitely improvement from the beginning, especially in the proportions of your figures, keep up the good work