Over the past couple weeks, I was assigned two different Bargue plates focusing on the profile of a head. Plate 35 was given to me in class to replicate and plate 39 was assigned for homework. I find the head much more stressful to draw because “likeness” is more of a concern than other parts of the body. If you make a leg a little short, or the fingers a little wide, nobody will comment on how it doesn’t look like a leg or hand. However, make the nose of a profile a little too pointy or the forehead a little too wide, then the first critique you’ll hear is “you didn’t get the likeness.”
Overall, I feel like I’m easing more and more into the process and my eye is getting a little sharper when copying plates such as these. Plate 39 was a little more difficult due to the added complexity of the head leaning away from the viewer. But, another technique I used to help with plate 39 was based on the old saying: “If you really want to learn how to do something, teach it.”
As I was blocking in the lines for plate 39, I was narrating out loud as if I was doing the drawing in front of a class or for a YouTube video. I was home alone, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone wondering why I was talking to myself, and as I discovered many times in the past, there is a lot of truth in that old saying. Speaking out loud and acting as if I were teaching helped me focus on my technique and the details of my drawing more so than if I was drawing in silence, getting distracted by my own thoughts. As silly as it might make someone feel, I highly suggest to any artist to try the narrating out loud technique – just make sure nobody is home or in the studio with you.
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