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Week 25 | Realism and Art Nouveau
2023.03.20 - 2023.03.24
The last week's task involved focus on color media, as well as merging all the knowledge and learned techniques together in one piece. I started off with a basic line sketch, trying not to be too harsh with applying pressure since I knew I'd have to erase a bit of it before adding the colors.
As you can see, I didn't really make a thumbnail for this piece in the beginning, but I was grateful for the tutors for allowing me to know whether I for example got any of the limbs a little too long or short, bunched up the shoulders too much, etc.
As I began to add color, I tried to be mindful about the mixture of colder and warmer tones. If I wanted to achieve something like black or dark gray, I mixed the colors together instead of using the black pencil.
All in all, the piece ended up being far more subtle in terms of cold and warm temperature which in my opinion gave it a more realistic feel.
Week 24 | Focus on Human Figure
2023.03.13 - 2023.03.17
uIt was very nice to go back to my comfort medium this week - graphite. I sketched the model with confident and sharper lines, knowing I could refine them as much as I wanted later on.
There were only a couple times that I found myself drawing someone from the very front view and I found it to be good experience. The seats at the front in our studio were empty a lot of the time during these type of tasks, too, making me wonder if nobody wanted to accidentally make eye contact with the model. It was a funny thing to think about.
Moving on with the details, I was probably most excited to work on the face as well as the folds of the shirt. I stylized the face quite a bit I think, but what mattered was for me to have a good distribution of value across it.
As you can see, I darkened the face up quite a lot just to make sure the cast shadow from the model's hat really stands out and created depth while keeping it the main focus of the piece at the same time. The hands required a lot of attention to the detail, too.
Week 23 | Combining Black and Colour Media
2023.03.06 - 2023.03.10
This task was very difficult for me, as it was my first time using this type of medium. I believe it was chalk, or chalk pastels. All I knew was that I absolutely hated the way it interacted with the paper. It was a little like dragging a rusty fork against concrete, or biting into a piece of rock. I think I only realized how much it frustrated me a bit later, at first thinking I simply felt unmotivated that day.
Nonetheless, I did enjoy the start of the task that involved making a thumbnail with graphite. I decided to make two just so I'd have variants to choose from.
My color application workflow was... Questionable, to say the least, but I decided I'd try applying a warm-color outline first, then fill in the gap with a bit of a base, then tone it out layering the medium on top and erasing out the parts that needed to be lighter. I was confused with how to approach the whole process once I put it to practice. It just that seemed much more promising in my head and I began to be frustrated over it not turning out the way I wanted it to.
I made a quick and small additional drawing focusing only on the model's face, just politely asking the medium to make friends with me. While I did feel like I had a better understanding of it, it felt like it was going to be very difficult to implement it into the artwork that I'd already done so much of. I was running short of time, too, and this piece had to be finished at home. Which, I'm glad I decided to finish it at home, because there I just decided I'd finalize it with my watercolor pencils.
Week 22 | Enhancement week
2023.02.27 - 2023.02.03
I unfortunately didn't prioritize the enhancement week task that we had, resulting in it getting lost in my already flawed time management and being forgotten.
Week 21 | Human Body Dynamics. Ink and Ink Washes
2023.02.20 - 2023.02.24
I very much enjoyed this week's task. It had been a good while since I last worked with ink, and I felt anxious at first about making a big mess sooner or later, spilling the pigment all across my work...
But it just never happened, and all my work was clean. Starting with the first one seen on the right side, I was suggested to try and leave some blank paper space for the next one instead of applying ink and water to the whole silhouette of the model. That's exactly what I did in this other artwork I did, also featuring a different angle as I got in a different seat for it. Once again, the tutors were fine with me stylizing the face and hand a bit, so I was grateful for that.
I really liked this third piece that I made, already seeing a bigger improvement in how light I made the tone of the ink wash, as well as how much of the paper I allowed to be blank. I really enjoyed exploring the dynamics of the muscle structure too, giving a lot of subtle and sharper shadows with the ink and using it as splatters to help build depth and point out highlights of the figure.
Our last task of the lecture was to make a piece using no ink washes at all and only an outline of pigmented ink, as well as to focus on the piece being dynamic. I quite liked the way it turned out, I only think there was an issue with the way I had a few of the lines not straight (especially on the legs). The cause of that was the fact that I was thinking a little too much and not allowing my line to flow freely, following a simple idea of me recreating what I saw. It did turn out looking alright though, and I was ready to call this week's tasks a success.
Week 20 | Nude Figure on Black Paper
2023.02.13 - 2023.02.17
I'd only ever worked once or twice with black paper before this task, so it was quite an exciting one.
Starting out with a small and goofy thumbnail allowed me to get a slight feel on the whereabouts of the position of the model on my paper. It was a sharp profile, and I knew that keeping track on how long I'd make the limbs was crucial. I thought a lot about te head being a little too large but with the assistance of the tutor we concluded that it was a perfect scale.
White calk felt a little strange on the paper, and I did not like the way it merged with each other's textures, There was the option to smooth out ad possibly erase any areas I didn't need to have the white pigment on, and I personally fount smudging to be quite fun.
The only downside to this task was that on the day of this lecture I wore black clothing, resulting in it having all kind =s of white shapes on it by the end of the lecture.
Week 19 | Focus on Anatomy
2023.02.06 - 2023.02.10
Week 19 had quite a lot in store for us, featuring a task made of a couple quick sketches for the sake of us developing studies.
My thumbnails were very simple but informative to me personally, allowing me to analyze how the model was stood, what kind of silhouette he had as well as how long and wide all of the body parts - head, arms, torso and legs - were meant to be in the overall piece.
Since our technique of shading wasn't set to be a specific type, I decided to go with hatching because I found it most fun to do. I enjoyed both the process of it, and the look.
I personally thing the piece above this text featured the models legs being portrayed as a bit too short, though according to the required measurement checks, the body parts and segments surprisingly matched up. It might have been tht the engle of this particular photo was a bit skewed.
The final piece involved the most complicated pose, and I believe the angle I chose for drawing it didn't really make the process any easier. But I got it done.
Week 18 | Portrait in Cold and Warm Colors
2023.01.30 - 2023.02.03
As scary as this week's task seemed at first, I surprisingly enjoyed working on it pretty much all the time through-out. We had to merge our usage of both warm and cold tones, sort of repeating what we did last week but projecting both of the temperatures onto one piece. The thumbnail, as always, gave the tutor a small giggle which I could not have been more satisfied with.
Working on a white paper for this was more comfortable than I thought it could be, and I could sort of revert to my knowledge on how to deal with a canvas that didn't allow me to lighten certain areas up with a white pencil. I feel like my progress pictures for the week are self-explanatory, allowing you to see my workflow and decision-making quite well since the start of color application all the way to the final piece. I do have to mention that checking the artwork in grayscale was a new experience for me, but it was very useful to know I had gone on the right track recognizing value over the tone of the color.
Week 17 | Color Aesthetics and Drawing Techniques
2023.01.23 - 2023.01.27
As you can see, I found myself wanting to create the silliest looking thumbnails, out-doing myself every time and coming up with little doodles of what looked like a totally different species. I didn't have anything against thumbnails, I was simply not used to making them even after nearly a couple academic years now at the university.
Anyway, I would be lying if I said I wasn;t anxious about this week's task. Color wasn't something I was comfortable with, at least not when it came to realism. I found it easy to get overwhelmed in the amount of techniques one could use when implementing color into their sketches, and at first I genuinely didn't know where to start, so I began with applying the highlights right away. It was also very interesting to work with this type of paper.
It isn't really visible here, but I did have a pretty clear border around my drawing just to keep an eye on my overall composition of the artwork in its earliest stages.
Below this text is a picture of the final cold-tone piece that I was quite satisfied with myself. It gave me comfort to know my stylization of the face was welcome.
Above this text is the progress picture of my sketch for the warm color piece. As you may notice, I switched my seat to have a different angle of our model, and I was happy to see that I got a glimpse of the woman's other features, ones that I didn't quite notice from looking at her at a softer semi-profile.
Just like with the cold piece, I started out with the highlights of the forehead, eyes, hair, nose, under-eyes and chin. I just felt like this workflow allowed me to make a big step right away and influence my perception to think about the height and depth of the face instead of focusing on the actual colors themselves.
Speaking of which, I definitely think the warm-toned assisted me in this task, unlike the one prior to this featuring cold colors.
As you can see, at a certain point I just focused on adding a lot more saturation of the colors with my pencils, making the piece be a very radiant and bright one in contrast to the previous one that was rather mute and gloomy.
It was quite interesting how the application of a white pencil turned the warm red into a colder pink, encouraging me to not use it much if I wanted to highlight any areas. At the end of the day though, it didn't hurt my piece at all.
This is the final result of this week's task - a warm-colored portrait. I don't know if it was just me, but the model looked a little more expressive from the angle I chose to draw this second piece. I personally think it really fit with how the colder portrait didn't feature as much emotion or joy, but this one sort of did.
Week 16 | Focus on Portrait
2023.01.16 - 2023.01.20
I really liked this week's assignment because the model had features that I genuinely found fun to work with and interpret onto the paper in my way. I was planning to give the piece a darker background similarly to how I sketched it out in my thumbnails but wen it was done, I figured it was fine without the deeper values in the background.
Faces are my favorite thing to draw, so I very much enjoyed working my way around translating the model's features onto the paper as well as focusing on being anatomically correct with the underlying shape of the skull. I focused on the bigger picture consistently, bringing out smaller details without any part of the face and head getting left behind.
On the right side of this section you can see the final result. I believe I made the contrast of the piece just a little too high, but at the same time I don't think it hurt to have some values appear as a bit darker (the inside of the ear and under it, the nostril and the inside of the sweater. Overall, I think the piece really turned out to be expressive in its character and mood as well as balanced in tonal value and composition.
Week 15 | The Human Face
2023.01.09. - 2023.01.13
I gave the first drawing of the term a ridiculous thumbnail which didn't really prepare me for the actual artwork.
And unfortunately I didn't take anymore progress screenshots as I completely forgot about them this particular lesson, however I think I completed the task pretty well, and that was all that mattered.
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