Tonight was the final class for my first course in pencil drawing. We spent the last 4 weeks creating a drawing from bust statue casts, starting with line abstraction and finishing as close to completely shaded as possible. I chose to draw the bust of Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman writer and philosopher from around 63 BC. I learned with this project, quite explicitly, among other things, that longest and most painstaking part of creating a work like this isn’t the initial block-in, or outline, it’s creati ng the value scale and adding those values to the entire drawing.
The first week was spent creating our own drafts or quick sketches of the subject to decide how we wanted to compose the image. We then started the initial outline. The second week was spent solely finishing the initial block-in, making sure the proportions of the drawing were correct, and the composition was consistent with the draft – something that proved to be much more difficult than I originally expected. At the end of the second week, we already started our value scale and shaded-in the first value.
Another unexpected difficulty with a drawing like this is matching your exact easel position, your point of view, and the lighting on the subject from week to week. When I started on the third week, I noticed the angle of the nose in my drawing was much different than how it looked on the subject from the point of view at my easel. The head also seemed to be turned more toward me, but in my drawing, it was turned away. I’m not sure if I just drew it incorrectly, or if my position or perspective changed from the last class, despite having tape on the floor to mark the position of my easel, the angle of the light, etc. In any case, I had to erase and re-draw some of the drawing so it matched how I was seeing the bust presently. This confirmed for me why I’m much more comfortable drawing from a photograph or in an “Alla Prima” style, which typically means “in one sitting”, though that’s a term primarily used for painting.
The final week was spent solely on finishing the values of our shadows, then trying to complete the rest of our values from dark lights to highlights. We ran out of time, so I don’t think I adequately completed shading-in all the values, but, overall, I was pleased with my first drawing of this size and scope. The shading of the cloth that is draped behind the bust was the most time-absorbing part of the final process – if I could go back, I would solely work on completing the values on the bust first, before attempting the drape.
I also realized by the end of this class that I feel I picked up some momentum with my drawing over the past 10 weeks. My fear would be that if I took a different class now, or stopped going to class for a while, that momentum would regress. I decided to take this class again at Studio Incamminati, starting in a few weeks, on April 15th. It will be taught again by Katya Held, which is another reason why I decided to continue – I love Held’s teaching style and talent. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s Russian or a little old-school, but she doesn’t sugar-coat when pointing out your mistakes or where you need improvement. It’s one of the reasons why I chose Studio Incamminati – they are a serious school, for serious artists. Even if the art is a hobby to some, they’re pushed to achieve their best.
Below are a series of the photos documenting the progress of this drawing from start to finish. Looking back on them is fun and a good learning tool. I need to do this more often – my phone is always in my pocket, so I need to document the “process” as well as the finished product.
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