Week 5 :Life Drawing, Human Anatomy and Proportion

Week 5 was a refresher on the basics of human anatomy as shown above. This week was mainly concentrated on proportions and how weight can be shown within a drawing. The image on the left has been drawn mainly to show weight from the man leaning on his arms. Looking back at this drawing its proportion is off due to the size of his head. This was mainly due to the 10 minute limit, although quick measuring could also be a culprit.

The second drawing of the man standing up straight with good posture shows great proportions due to the amount of time spent measuring and planning the drawing on the page. The figure’s height was counted as 7 heads tall whilst measuring. For this drawing a new technique of quickly getting the main features and curves down before choosing the line of best fit was used, this created a neater and more attractive drawing. The figure’s muscles are emphasized due to the fact that there is more detail on certain areas of his body. (10 minutes each)

Week 4 :Still Life, Foreshortening and Oblique Angles

Week 4 was concentrated on foreshortening drawings with sharp/oblique angles. Foreshortening is a great effect to learn but can be tricky to get used to, since you are drawing the object as expected in 3D space by compressing the length to give it a sharper and more dramatic look. Using oblique angles also helps to give this effect as it is much harder to draw an object at a slightly offset 90° angle. By doing this was challenging, to achieve this effect with no mistakes or rough drawings is extremely difficult without a lot of practice.

Above is an attempt of two anatomy skeletons which were placed in such a way that to draw them foreshortening and the oblique angles would have to be used. This is an obvious observation mainly for the distant skeleton within the drawing. It is clear that it has been compressed to try and capture the exact angle it was viewed from, whilst still trying to keep realistic proportions. Looking back at this drawing it is now clear that the rib cage seems to be too large for the distant skeleton as it almost takes up most of the drawing and seems to be massively out of proportion. The second skeleton which is closer was simply added to show why some areas of the first were not drawn and also to show just how distant the first skeleton was. (55 minutes)

Week 3 :Composition, Focus

Week 3’s focus was on the focal point of a composition drawing. This can be done by using a number of basic rules/techniques for compositions. These techniques are used to draw the viewer’s eye towards a certain objects within the drawing, two of these techniques are balance (to have an even or disrupted spread of objects in a drawing to interest the viewer) and finishing (to show the main object (point of interest) with more detail to help it stand out). These two techniques alone are enough to change a viewer’s opinion on a piece of work but there are still many more.

For this week’s drawing session the class could rearrange the objects into any composition. The three main techniques which have been taken into consideration whilst working this week are finishing, focus and layout. This can clearly be seen within the drawing as the main objects, which are the large vase and the pipe, are quite detailed and have been vastly finished compared to the flowers and other secondary objects. The cloth on the other hand is only there to show that the objects do have a setting to sit on, so it has been kept very basic with only simple and quite sketchy lines. (20 minutes)

Week 2 :Composition and Form

The emphasis of Week 2 was the shape and form of the objects within the composition. Since the shape of an object is simply its outline this week’s drawings quite plain due to there being no inner detail. This is very interesting, as it is amazing how recognisable objects are just from their silhouettes. From these contour lines it is easy to portray the shape of the almost hidden objects.

Above is a contour drawing using charcoal of the composition which was a table with a variety of objects placed on top. This contour took 20 minutes to draw. The drawing uses negative space to show the silhouettes of the objects and the table. Although some mistakes were made whilst drawing this contour it still looks great and the main objects within the composition like the stool, table cloth and large vase are easily recognisable.

Week 1 :Refresher

For the start of our semester we drew a checkered cloth was placed over a table and stools. This was quite a challenging drawing as it tested the skills that had been obtained during semester one. This is a 40 minute drawing. It has very good perspective due to measuring, you can easily see that the table is circular and the stools are squared at their ends. The cloth has a nice consistent flowing effect and looks realistic. The checkers on the cloth are faintly drawn and not noticeable at first glance but they give the drawing a detailed look as it is a part of the composition’s secondary points from a viewer’s point of view.