Life Drawing: November 2014

Here are all of my life drawings from November 2014.

Wednesday, 26th of November

Three (warm up) charcoal drawings each drawn in quick succession. The subject chose to position himself in some difficult poses that created depth and perspective.

Charcoal figures.

Charcoal figures.

Charcoal, here I focused on drawing the outline then simply adding the dark areas of the figure in. I used a light grey to build up the shadow.

Using charcoal I filled in the outline with harsh dark marks to build up a sense of depth and add texture. Instead of shading the dark areas by smudging the charcoal to blend in with the negative space I added more contrasting lines to create strong shadows. These shadows conflict with their surrounding area due to a lack of grey/ mid tones. 

I repeated the same technique here with this drawing. Using dark marks to build strong shadows.

Two drawings. Left was drawn with a pencil and the right was drawn with a fine liner.

Light pencil.

Here I used a fine liner to create precise marks. Going from a thick, blunt piece of charcoal to a sharp fine liner proved challenging; but I am happy with the results.

Overview of my work.

Wednesday, 19th of November

Three initial warm up drawings drawn using charcoal in quick succession. 

Playing with the composition of your drawing can create an interesting piece of work. Here I have drawn the subject in detail focusing on different areas of his body whilst framing the drawings with parts of his body missing.

Close up of the above image.

Again I have taken my time with these drawings and framed them differently, zooming in and out from the subject. 

I used a rubber to etch into charcoal to create the figure using negative space. I purposely placed the figure at the bottom left of the page to create a more interesting composition.

This is the above drawing, here you can see how I changed the composition and placed the figure at the bottom left of the page.

Portrait drawings. I have always struggled with portrait drawing. Individually I can draw the features of the human face but when put together to make a face I seem to struggle with getting them right. Here for example I made the eyes on the left way to big. They should of been much smaller. I feel like every drawing I do of a persons face looks the same as the next. this is something I will try to work on over the period of this course.  

Wednesday, 12th of November

Ink and Water.

Ink and Water.

Multiple drawings using different techniques.

Ink and Water.

Ink and Water.

Charcoal, I exaggerated the forces applied to her body such as gravity. This gives her a greater curve to her back.
I also focused on giving her curvier limbs and didn't focus on small details such as her hands and head.

Again here I have exaggerated the curve in her back and size of her stomach and legs.

I have greatly increased the size of her features In this drawing. making her spine curve more in the process. 

First 3 warm up drawings. 1st on the left, 2nd in the middle and the last on the right. Warm up drawings really helps to get your eye in and loosen your hand. Just like warming up before exercise.

My set up.

Wednesday, 5th of November

Charcoal and Rubber.

Charcoal and Rubber.

Charcoal and Rubber.

Charcoal, I used the long side on the charcoal to create long smooth marks. This technique is very similar to painting.

In these drawings I have blackened out a whole page using charcoal and etched into the page using a rubber.

Side of the charcoal stick and smudging using my fingers.

Side of the charcoal stick using long smooth strokes.

Charcoal and rubber. Notice the light tones I added around the figure to bring him out from the page. This helps to separate my drawing from the sea of charcoal surrounding him by creating an atmosphere/ highlight, this in turn adds depth to an otherwise flat image.