Given some of the challenges I’ve been having with coloured pencils and pastels, and colour in general, I decided that I may as well give painting a quick try. To be honest I’m enjoying it more than I expected to. Firstly, an attempt with acrylic paints:
Now, lets try a similar experiment with Egon Schiele, who I have less exposure of. Again, I’ll start by looking at some images:
On the line of action site I found an article about mastering your pencil, which provides advice on increasing the tonal range that you can achieve with a single pencil. The idea is basically to fill in an increasing number of boxes on a daily basis to get an increase in tone across the page.
As I’ve had feedback that improving my tonal range would be valuable I decided to try it:
The exercise does seem to be valuable, though I have a way to go as there is another page of increasing shades to try. As might be expected it is getting progressively more difficult. Its likely I should be trying a similar exercise with other mark making approaches – such as conte and charcoal.
This is my first session in quite a while, and it shows:
The only one I really like is the 15 minute pose from behind, where I concentrated more on tone than line. For the 20 minute pose I managed to get lost in proportions, and didn’t have time to fix it. I think it was the foreshortening on the leg that threw me. It was a similar story with the final pose, although here I realised my mistake (which was the angle of the back this time) with enough time left for a partial fix.
In terms of moving forwards, I need to keep practising and so need to find a way to get to life drawing sessions more reliably. That is going to be a challenge given the timings of my new role.
A slight tangent for the interior exercise, as I think it’s supposed to be in black and white (achromatic). I took a bit of time out to play with getting a better tonal range with coloured pencils. Continue reading “Playing with colour”
This has been a fairly long winded Project in its own way. I previously commented on my composition research, which I have been combining with some experiments in different media. I’m beginning to think more when building a composition – which I suppose is a level of success.
The next step, I think, is to move on to the other exercises and apply this new experimenting with media and composition to them. Its likely to be an interesting journey, as I have a lot of new things to think about.
Within the media, the water colour wax crayons have worked OK – but the oil pastels are too crude. They would be best for very large format drawings, or I need to find a way to provide more subtlety in their use. The blending of colour “in situ,” rather than on a palette, is also proving quite a challenge for me – but one I need as however many colours I have available I’ll never have everything I’d like.
I found this session interesting, as it concentrated on tone provided by having a shaded ground and then adding/subtracting. The first is white paper with charcoal, and the next two black paper with white chalk.
Started to draw a rock on a wooden base with shadows as dip pen practice. This approach was suggested as an alternative to fineliner by my tutor. In some ways it was being successful, as the mark making is generating an interesting approach. It was also, however, being very time consuming and wouldn’t have produced a good final image.
Sharpened 4B mechanical pencil in a white sketchbook, and using a putty rubber. It was interesting that whilst doing the second sketch I got the expected attention to the drawing process. What was less expected is that during the time I was sketching I collected about 5 other people around me who started doing the same.
I’ve found another source of life drawing to try. This is in Canterbury and centred around Meet-up. The session was of a fairly normal structure, but I was somewhat happier with the results.
First a set of 1 minute poses to warm up:
The next of my Life Drawing sessions. We started with a blind contour drawing
I’ve managed to get my hands on a Microsoft surface and have been trying it out with Krita and Corel Paint Essentials...
It make take me a while to learn to use the tools well, but I’m optimistic that I’ll be able to use it effectively. My hope is that I can use it as a sketchbook when its impractical to carry a good range of paper and tools.
Worked through this video:
First a series of 2 minute poses.. Continue reading “Croquis Cafe Heads Up 2”
Part of my on-going efforts to draw people. Getting better. This is starting to form a series: I’ve taken a set of photos on trains, at stations and commuting in general to use as subjects for sketches.
I managed to get to my first life drawing class in a while.The first exercise, the featured image, was Blind contour drawing. There are some recognisable elements at least. An interesting feature here was that occasional ‘repositioning’ was considered acceptable. I did so about 4 times in the 12m session. Continue reading “Life Drawing”
David Howard, OCA Drawing 1 