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| Ethereal Charcoal/Pastel 5.25 x 17.5 |
For the last session of our drawing class, we elected to draw the figure. The art teacher whose room we borrow at night was happy to recommend a high school art student willing to pose and make a few Christmas dollars. Yeah! Maggie was athletic, long and lean. She was able to relax well for us in this extremely horizontal pose. Results can be seen in the accompanying slide show. I felt that we all did well as far as simple shapes and proportions. There were a few angles(especially for the pillowed head) that were slightly off. Judging angles visually is difficult but can be aided by using one's pencil at arm's length to find it and replicate it on the paper. An angle that is off just a smidgen causes the head to lose its state of relaxation and appear to be full of tension, as if getting up. Once figure drawing is mastered, an artist will be able to use photos for reference without point to point copying without anatomical understanding thereof. Another problematic area occurred for those whose perspective involved the foreshortening of the head area. I recommended treating this head and shoulders area as a shallow bowl, with a losing of edges and slight shadowing in the middle with the more complete rendering around the diameter where most of the light would appear. A difficult, but interesting illusion.
For me, nothing is more rewarding than the curves of the human figure.
