I mentioned in my previous post that my teacher, Katya Held, advised me and the other students in the drawing class to practice over the summer using objects or casts that are a single color. Drawing a live figure or anything else with more local colors (skin, hair, eyes, etc) is much more advanced because of the additional subtle values the colors add to a monochromatic drawing. Still, I found it to be a worthwhile challenge with this figure study from an open studio session tonight at The Plastic Club.
This was a one-hour pose, drawn over three 20-minute sessions. I originally didn’t like the pose because it seemed plain at first, without any interesting lines or gestures. However, as I was finishing the block-in, I really started to enjoy the serenity of this reclined pose and the peaceful expression on her face. I also loved the process of shading the subtle plains on the model’s body, created by the light source high above her. As I learned with Katya, I started adding the darkest shadows first, which was made a little more challenging due to the model’s dark, black hair.
It’s obvious that I couldn’t have finished all the shading in this drawing in one hour. I did take a reference photo and worked on it over the next week, which gave me the opportunity to not only take more time trying to perfect the value shading, but to work on other details, like the toes, feet, hands, and face. I have seen other artists create a drawing similar to this in scope and detail in only an hour, but having the chance to work on it and explore it slowly was a good exercise, which should eventually lead to quicker rendering.
Overall, I’m pleased with the outcome of this drawing. Some of the things I felt could have been better were the model’s likeness, the rendering of her right hand, and the noise in some of the shading (there’s a lot of graininess in some of the mid and halftones, or dark lights and light shadows. I’m hoping to explore similar challenges over the rest of the summer.
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