Life Drawing

My Goal

My aim is to create exciting and memorable characters from imagination, which requires repeated study of the human form through observation. During life drawing sessions, I often try to focus on achieving stylized outcomes rather than realistic replicas (though this is not the case for longer poses or for academic assessed pieces). Simplifying lines helps evoke mood and dynamism. Ultimately, my goal is to make even mundane poses filled with personality :)

By concept art student Alicia Zhang

By Yizheng Ke

By Ben Lo

Wednesday 10th January 2024

9 x 15 seconds blind contour with our non dominant hand

15 min in total (each one around 5min)

We did nine gestural drawings of 15 seconds where we didn't look at our page to warm up for this session. We also swapping to our non-dominant hand for a few of them to really try and think with our creative left side of the brain. This was a very interesting exercise which definitely made me laugh inside once the time was up and I got to see all of the funny disfigured proportions. They still at least resembled a person so I was satisfied with them as fun experimental outcomes.
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We then moved onto a 15 minute pose. My goal was to try and draw figures quickly and effectively so instead of drawing one figure for 15 minutes, I drew the same figure three times; each time trying to improve the simplicity and accuracy of my lines. My goal is to be able to create dynamic poses effectively using just a few, confident lines. In the first attempt, it is clear that the centre of gravity is completely incorrect. I drew arrows indicating where the libs should be pushed. In my second attempt, the upper half of the body was quite satisfactory since it shows a good understanding of the overlapping forms, but the legs and knees look super knobbly and lacks structure. for the final attempt, I do believe my confidence is easily visible through the simplicity of my lines, however, the feet and ankles are awfully rushed and disfigured.

Wednesday 24th January 2024

In comparison to such quick studies, 30 minutes felt like far too long. I had gotten the figure drawn in under 15 minutes and was done with simple shading in 20 so I decided to go ahead and add the cloth on his chair. I didn't really feel confident shading because I was right next to the lamp which made my view look increadibly lit, leaving very little shaded area visible to me. In the next session, I should sit further away from the lamp so that I can practice drawing the core shadows as it is something I know I struggle with.

as for the figure itself, I am quite happy with it despite a few anatomical errors. In the first study (lef), his right arm (our left) should be raised higher because it looks as if it is slidding off his shoulder. His legs should also be elongated just a tiny bit by bringing his waist up and back, and his feet should be a little larger to indicate foreshortening.

We did many 5 min figures this session. I feel I am becoming a lot more confident drawing complex poses but I still feel that the lines I am putting down aren't implying sense of weight or form as successfully as I wish. I never gave myself enough time to draw the head, and I need to improve the way I draw overlapping forms. You can see the initial line of motion I drew for all of these studies which really helped ground the model with a centre line of gravity and it is definitely an improvement from last session. I also attempted to draw the poses in a dynamic way using these lines of motion, however, I still have a long way to properly utilize them; my poses still feel very stationary and a mirror of what I am seeing rather than an exaggeration of what I feel when looking at the pose.

This time I sat further from the light which made drawing the core shadows easier. I think the sitting poses gave the best outcomes this session despite it being a lot more difficult than the standing poses. I think this is mainly due to the fact that the poses where more exciting.

Wednesday 21st February 2024

Tuesday 27th February 2024

November 2024

Wednesday 21st February 2025

Wednesday 12th March 2025

Friday 14th March 2025

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