[horstenpeter]

Hey everyone, I am taking life drawing once a week and I was wondering whether anyone could give me any comments on how to improve.

20 minute poses from the 18th of Nov








What do you think of the one that has shading ? The instructor doesn't want me to do shading, but she couldn't tell me why except that she says Picasso showed 3 dimensionality without shading.

As an animation guy, should I practice shading in life drawing or not?

These next ones are from the 25th. Me and two animation students convinced the instructor to do gestures and 10 minute poses, but after about half of the 3 hour class the others (who are hobby artists) wanted to go back to 20 minute poses, so in the end we settled on 15 minute poses. Thus, the first few are 5 or 10 minute poses, and the last few are 15 minute.

I switched back to charcoal. I like it better.











Sorry for the large download. I posted everything because I want you to see not only my strengths but also my weaknesses.

I'd be thankful for any comments.

[[666]Flat]

Good lord. With a model like that I'd quit life drawing, in fact I'd quit drawing at all, wash my eyes out with an acid-lye-cocktail and start breeding rabbits, never giving up the hope the next bottle of bourbon would help me to erase those awful pictures from my memory.
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[Al Ian]

ROTFLMAO @ Flat.

OK, beyond that the life drawings look very realistic. You have a good eye for what you see, good job!!!
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http://jmarkey77.home.bresnan.net/

[faB]

horstenpeter I haven't done lifedrawing since a while but from my latest self portraits I learnt a few things. One thing I notice is that you almost didnt shade them. The woman is not very womanly, sure she's got some 'weight' but still she looks almost man on some of the images. You seem to get the balance and pose right, but lack the definition that makes the person THAT person.

Some things you could try:
- think in term of volume and 'paint' the model with 3 shades, dark, loight, middle, try to find the shapes and block them in
- draw negative spaces, this will help you get some forms right, i.e. draw the empty space between the legs, around the silhouette as if it was solid, and the model is the 'hole'
- when you start try to get the forms right, if your first sketch is wrong there is no need to get it further.. close an eye, hold a pencil in front of the model, and imagine a grid and try to enclose the model in a large shape, then divide that shapes with lines that are parrellel with some features like the leg or arm etc, once that shape looks right, then start shading in

As for not needing shading I am experimenting with that I tried to do self portraits just with lines, not even corsshattching and I find it quite difficult. Things I would try is to vary the lineweight depending on the shadows and the masses, but basically I think you need to paint the model in your mind anyway to be able to get the right lines?
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"I'm not a shrimp, I'm a KING PRAWN !" -- Pepe.
selfportraits & stuff

[spooge demon]

If you can only use one tool (line) you have to be even more thoughtful and precise with things. It is easier to rub a little tone where the silhouette doesn't carry the day.

I would say you need to slow down and be more precise. And only draw what you can do well in the time alloted. Think,solve a problem, learn something by really looking. It is arbitrary to say that you have to get the whole figure in in a certain amount of time. Maybe also use a rapidograph, so you don't have lineweight to fall back on as well as using no shading. That might force you to look for how much information is carried in just the silhouette. Going to fast makes the lines too general. I had a teacher call them "motor lines" where you are on automatic pilot, just absent mindedly drawing down an arm or something.

Look specifically for areas of overlapping form, and play that up.

But...

If you are an animation student, you should be drawing action and gesture, pretty much the opposite of the excercise you are doing here. Look at glenn vilppu's page- really solid stuff for animators and everyone. Stay away from techniques or tonal rendering for a while, learn action and structure and anatomy.

[horstenpeter]

Flat, AFAIK the next model will be even more extreme. I don't know, I found it interesting to draw from this model after years of painting skinny models.

Al Ian, thanks!

faB, I tried the lineweight thing in this weeks session, but I can't post the images until the weekend. I think there are some better ones in there.

spooge, you are so right about precision. I only recently learned to appreciate it, but I still have problems with actually being precise. I am very fast at losing my concentrationd and falling into the motor lines thing you mentioned. Looking back at my older life drawings, most of them are 10 minutes of scribbling lines onto the paper and in the end accentuating the line that looks right the most.
The thing I struggle with is construction, I guess. Right now I draw a faint line to place the figure and then work over that to find the final outline.
The next session is on Monday. I'll try to concentrate more then, and I'll also look at Glenn Vilppu's drawing lessons.
Thanks for your help.