So, another semester of the Academy of Art University is in progress. Here you can see the second assignment, or module as they call them. The process is simple. From reference, lay in a gesture drawing with very few identifying marks...just get the gesture. No hard defined lines either, just be vague. Then place shadow shapes in of the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and such to get the proportions down. Again, vaguely because they may need to be adjusted. So far only the red charcoal is being used. After that, harden the cast shadow edges further committing the shapes...notice I said shapes and not lines. :) Leave the form shadows soft and darken in the darks now that proportion and placement is sure. (one could hope) Once the values from the red charcoal (sanguine is its name) are established change over to the white charcoal to add highlights. The paper itself functions as the middle tone or value between light and dark. The trick is to avoid mixing any white and red charcoal leaving the toned paper to transition between...except for cast shadows. In the cast shadow, white and red can be flush. But again, they cannot blend in any way. :D Find a happy place and sign your name. My signature is kinda lame this time, but oh well. Proof that I'm not a complete slacker...this is really hard to do, and I took like 6 hours or so (with interruptions throughout the day). My greatest disappointment is that I didn't get to it until today....and it is Sunday. Sorry folks. I'm trying to avoid that this semester from now on. Well, I hope you enjoy!
4 comments:
I don't know if you remember me or not, but I was in school at BYU-I for a while when you were there. I found your site the other day and added it to my art blog list. I love drawing/painting people, I do not have any models available so it makes it difficult to get much practice in, i'm considering asking people at church to let me draw them (although in the past this has proved to be very awkward and they turn me down, the sitting still while someone draws you apparently is too much work for most people). Thank you for this post, i found it very educational. I haven't used much colored charcoal/sangine when drawing and I have difficulty with the white pencils, so this actually really helped clear some things up in my head of how to do it. Very beautiful portrait.
No problem Andrea. I remember ya! :D It's good to hear from a fellow alumni. I do not get models very often either. As an illustrator I settle for less more often than not. I take a picture for reference 9/10 times. It is important to set up the lighting and get the model posed the way you desire. This assignment was also done from a photograph, so don't hold back if you can get a good photo to do work from. The bigger the reference the better though, and of course get as good a quality shot as you can. :D It's good to see you sketching! That is still the greatest strength to an artist in my opinion...even if they can do fancy paintings, if they do not sketch often they lack something. :) Well, good to hear from you! Take care, and I'll hear from you later. :P
Shaun, it's beautiful. I really enjoy the look of this type of drawing. Your explanation of the assignment reminded me a lot of my basic drawing class: don't draw lines, draw shapes instead and use the actual shapes to create your lines, use guides but don't go overboard, don't mix or you end up with pink and that just doesn't work... It's awesome Shaun!
Post a Comment