Assignment Two




Friday 2 October 2009



Course work: Started work on the “Proportions” exercise, with six two-minute sketches, and two ten-minute sketches. The two minute sketches were highly unsatisfactory: I simply cannot process the information rapidly enough to transfer it accurately to the paper. Figure heights ranged from 6 ½ to 8 heads. The ten-minute sketches were somewhat better, with figure heights of 7 ½ and 8 heads. though the proportions were still far from precise. Fortunately, many hours of drawing still lie ahead.



Reading:



Clint Brown and Cheryl McClean, Drawing From Life (2nd Ed)

Harcourt College Publishers, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1997

Pp 3-35



Bridget Woods Life Drawing

The Crowood Press, Ramsbury, Marwood, Wiltshire. 2003

Pp 7-33



Personal Sketchbook Work: A drawing of the last two tomatoes of the year.



Total time: about two hours



Saturday 3 October 2009



Course work: Three 10-minute drawings, each with proportional errors. The drawings measured 7 ¾, 8, and 9 heads tall (the model is 7 ¾ heads tall). Arms seem to be harder for me to get “in proportion” than legs, though I am by no means satisfied with the legs. One of today’s drawings was done with a ballpoint pen: it is the worst of the three. I think I see a bit of improvement in the two pencil drawings when compared with earlier work.



Reading:



Clint Brown and Cheryl McClean, Drawing From Life (2nd Ed)

Harcourt College Publishers, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1997

Pp 36-60



Claudia Betti & Teel Sale, Drawing, A Contemporary Approach (4th Ed)

Thomson Learning, Inc. (1997)

Chapter 7 (Pp 195-208)



Ian Simpson, The Complete Drawing Course

Running Press, Philadelphia, PA 1993

Human proportions (Pp 94-95), Lesson Fourteen (Pp110-117)



Personal sketchbook work: Another drapery study, in preparation for the forthcoming exercises.



Total time: about two hours



Sunday 4 October 2009



Course work: Drew one more 10- minute standing figure with water-soluble pencil in hopes of improvement. I managed a 7 ½ head figure, with improved arm proportions, but was otherwise not pleased. I then switched to A3 paper, and moved on to the one-hour pose, where the time pressure was a good bit less. I was startled to find that I was having more trouble with drawing the large chair than I was with drawing the model. I think that I got the proportions and angles reasonably accurate, but my hour ran out before I finished the shading or the details of the chair. Having been pretty dissatisfied with my other work in this assignment, it was a relief to be able to produce something with which I was moderately pleased. Thinking it would be interesting to try a pen and ink drawing similar to the one on page 6 of the course material, I had a try at it, first doing a pencil sketch for positioning. I don’t think this experiment was very successful: shapes and proportions appear fairly satisfactory, but my hatching started off too tight, and ended up too loose, resulting in an inconsistent mess.



Reading:



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art,

Phaidon Press Limited, Oxford 1978

Chapter 11 (pp 155-166)



Bridget Woods Life Drawing

The Crowood Press, Ramsbury, Marwood, Wiltshire. 2003

Pp 35-66



Summary Observations on Proportions (Check and Log):

My two-minute poses were weak, with a range of head-heights from 6 ½ to 9 heads. The ten-minute poses were somewhat better proportionally, but only slightly. The one-hour seated pose was satisfactory and made a reasonably complete pose, with a solid-appearing figure. My main problem with much of this exercise was capturing the essence of the pose in the minimal time allotted: I am by nature a fairly careful worker, and do not do my best work under pressure of time.



Weekly thoughts on learning experience: Completed work on Assignment One and started on Assignment Two, thus transitioning from work with which I was beginning to feel comfortable to a new and challenging set of exercises at which my performance was quite poor. I realize that this I will do better as time passes, but at present I am quite frustrated.



Total time: About 2 ½ hours



Monday 5- Saturday 10 October 2009



(An emergency 800-mile round trip drive severely curtailed my drawing during these dates. I did manage a drawing of an unmade motel bed, and two small sketches in the motel breakfast room, but learned that hospitals and motels are highly unsatisfactory places to sketch.)



Total time: about 30 min



Sunday 11 October 2009



Back to work at last!



Course work: Twelve 2 ½ minute stance drawings done from CD “Nude Female Model No 3” © 2001, Glenn Vilppu, Acton, CA USA. (This CD contains a series of poses in which the model has twisted, turned, and bent herself into quite difficult-to-depict positions.) Although I found it relatively straightforward to determine the central axis (line of balance) trying to draw anything resembling a figure in such a short time was challenging, and I did not do well. I followed this up with four three-minute stance drawings from life, of which two were arguably a bit better.



Reading:



Bridget Woods Life Drawing

The Crowood Press, Ramsbury, Marwood, Wiltshire. 2003

Pp 67-93



Clint Brown and Cheryl McClean, Drawing From Life (2nd Ed)

Harcourt College Publishers, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1997

Pp 61-116



Claudia Betti & Teel Sale, Drawing, A Contemporary Approach (4th Ed)

Thomson Learning, Inc. (1997)

Chapter 7 (Pp 209-235)



Sketchbook work: A wild persimmon, sketched in the field, color added later.



Weekly thoughts on learning experience: Since I was only able to work on the course for one day this week, there is not a lot to reflect upon. My attempts at sketching in public places were not very satisfactory. My sketchbook work for the week as a whole was very poor, and my reading was very limited. My coursework did not please me. I will do better next week.



Total time: about two hours



12 October 2009



Course work: Not a good day. Did two stance drawings (2 ½ minutes each) from the source referenced on 11 Oct. They were so unsatisfactory I drew no more.



Reading:



Claudia Betti & Teel Sale, Drawing, A Contemporary Approach (4th Ed)

Thomson Learning, Inc. (1997)

Pp 239-258



Total time: about ½ hour



13 October 2009



Course work: Did six stance drawings (5 minutes each) from the source referenced on 11 Oct.



Reading:



Claudia Betti & Teel Sale, Drawing, A Contemporary Approach (4th Ed)

Thomson Learning, Inc. (1997)

Pp 259-282



Bridget Woods Life Drawing

The Crowood Press, Ramsbury, Marwood, Wiltshire. 2003

Pp 95-113



Sketchbook work: Two drapery studies done on A4 blue-grey paper, one with charcoal and chalk, the other with graphite and chalk.



Total time: A bit over three hours



Wednesday 14 October 2009



Course work: Four “stance” sketches from life. (I found it particularly difficult to determine in this exercise just exactly what was wanted of the student: every figure drawing book I own has a somewhat different definition of “gesture”, with wildly variable techniques: none of these definitions is congruent with the limited description in this section of the course. The second part of the exercise, titled “Energy,” seems a bit more like what I think of as gesture, and, rightly or wrongly, I have so interpreted it.) I then did eight gesture sketches from life, two each with charcoal, marker, graphite, and ballpoint pen. I found these difficult to do, as they seemed contrived (I’m sure that I’m overlooking some simple explanation or technique that would make them more straightforward). I lost track of the process at several points and ended up with some distinctly non-gestural drawings.



Reading:



“Spot” reading in several books, trying to come to grips with the concept of gesture.



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art,

Phaidon Press Limited, Oxford 1978

Chapter 12 (pp 167-182)





Personal sketchbook work: A tiny sketch done in a coffee shop. (These are challenging to do locally, as our only coffee shop has only five tables, and it is difficult to sketch inconspicuously, especially so as I know most of the patrons.)



Total time: About two hours



Thursday 15 October 2009



Course work: Drew eight more gesture figures, possibly a little better than some of yesterday’s. After searching through an almost-forgotten box in the attic, I found an old VHS tape on gesture that was quite helpful. I then drew 32 more gesture sketches, with times from 30 seconds to 2 minutes. I think I understand it a bit better now.



Reading:



Claudia Betti & Teel Sale, Drawing, A Contemporary Approach (4th Ed)

Thomson Learning, Inc. (1997)

Pp 283-314

(I am glad to have finished this book. The authors appear to have written a textbook of drawing for those students who prefer politics and polemics to learning how to draw: I am surprised that the book has gone through four editions. Although the text contains a useful overview of “contemporary” (i.e., primarily nonrepresentational) drawing, the authors’ political opinions so infect and infest the text that it is no more a pleasure to read than would be a book of contemporary politics heavily laden with ongoing discussions of the role of art in political discourse.)



Ian Simpson, The Complete Drawing Course

Running Press, Philadelphia, PA 1993

Lesson 13 (pp 104-109)



Personal sketchbook work: Tried to do some drawings of one of the cats, but she became suspicious and left before I got very far along.



Summary Observations on Gesture (Check and Log):



After finally getting a fairly clear (I hope!) idea of what gesture is I did a total of 74 sketches for this exercise. Many were pretty unsatisfactory, but they improved toward the end of the series. I was able to keep the figures fairly well balanced, even though in some of the more challenging ones the balance line was mostly outside the figure. Some of the sketches from late in the series do appear to capture the energy of the pose fairly well.





Total time: About 2 ½ hours