Thursday 22 October 2009




Course work: Drew the first drawing for the “Structure” exercise. I was unable to complete the drawing in the 60 minutes suggested, and was forced by model fatigue to finish, not from life, but from the placement photograph taken yesterday. Graphite pencil on A3 paper was employed, and a total time of 80 minutes was required.



Reading:



Keith Micklewright, Drawing

Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York (2005)

Chapters 15 & 16 (pp 148-162)



Ian Simpson, The Complete Drawing Course

Running Press, Philadelphia, PA 1993

Lesson 12 (pp 96-101)



Total time: about two hours



Friday 23 October 2009



Course work: Did the preliminary sketches for the standing drawing in the “Structure” exercise, using graphite. Started work on the larger drawing on A3 paper, using Conte’ pencil, in two fifteen-minute sessions: this standing pose is somewhat difficult for my willing, but untrained, model to maintain for very long.



Reading:



Betty Edwards, The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Penguin-Putnam, New York, 1999

Chapter 10, in part (pp 194-204)



Burne Hogarth Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1992

Pp 62-109



Personal sketchbook work: Two manikin drawings with shading. A drapery study after a catalog illustration, perhaps a bit over-ambitious. An exercise from The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, (done in the companion workbook).



Total time: About 3 ½ hours



Saturday 24 October 2009



Course work: Continued work on the standing drawing for the “Structure” exercise, using Conte’ pencil on A3 paper. Progress is rather slow, as I’m finding it challenging to reposition the model precisely after breaks, and Conte’ pencil is more difficult for me to work with than is graphite.



Reading:



Sherry Camby Art of the Pencil

Watson-Guptill Publication, New York, 1997

Pp 7-142

(I wish that I’d had this small book available at the start of the course. It contains clear, concise descriptions of most drawing media and their uses, with demonstrations and descriptions of techniques. Oddly, ink is omitted from the discussion, although water-soluble graphite, water-soluble colored pencils, and water-soluble crayons are included, as the use of various solvents.)



Personal sketchbook work: A Conte’ crayon version of the Willendorf Venus.



Total time: a bit over three hours

Sunday 25 October 2009



Course work: finished the shading on the standing drawing for the “Structure” exercise. Total time required for this drawing was about 1 hour 45 minutes, but I could not have done it in less time.



Reading:



E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art,

Phaidon Press Limited, Oxford 1978

Chapter 14 (pp 202-216)



Personal sketchbook work: A sketch of a manikin, a sphere, and a cube with water-soluble pencil, in an effort to learn a bit more about this medium. I have trouble getting the desired tonal variations, but it does seem to be a useful way to get tone on a sketch in a hurry. I plan to do some further work with it.



Weekly thoughts on learning experience: This has been a less-frustrating week than last: I have a clearer idea of what I am supposed to be doing. The suggested times for completion of the exercises continue to elude me, but I think that the quality of my work continues to show improvement: proportions are clearly more accurate than in my earlier work in the course. I’ve spent some time this week (not included in my time accounting) reviewing muscular anatomy in some of my old medical textbooks, a useful intellectual exercise if nothing more. Sketchbook work has been pretty good this week: I did miss one day, but compensated for it on a subsequent day. Most of my recent sketchbook work has been related to the figure.



Total time: a bit over an hour



Monday 26 October 2009



Course work: Did some preliminary sketching for the third (recumbent) drawing in the “Structure” exercise.



Reading:



Burne Hogarth Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1992

Pp 110-142

(A fairly useful book, although the illustrations seem quite exaggerated, and in some cases the divisions between the different categories of folds and wrinkles seem rather forced.)



Mari Le Glatin Keis The Art of Travel With a Sketchbook

Design Originals, Fort Worth, Texas, USA, 2007

Pp 9-95

(I was disappointed in this short book: I had hoped for more “how” and less “why.”)





Personal sketchbook work: Two simple, quickly-executed drapery studies done in water-soluble pencil, as a further exploration of the medium.



Total time: about 1 ½ hours



Tuesday 27 October 2009



Course work: My model was unavailable today, so I jumped forward to the next exercise and did a 15-minute line drawing of a garment hanging on a chair. I found the line drawing a good bit more difficult to do convincingly than the several drapery studies in tone that I have done recently.



Reading:



Lucy Watson The Artist’s Sketchbook

North Light Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 2001

Pp 6-33



Michael Woods Drawing Basics

Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 2000

Pp 4-92



(This little volume has a nice introductory section on materials and techniques, but, in my opinion, many of the demonstrations that follow are a bit too advanced for the fairly-inexperienced student for which the book was apparently intended. Nevertheless, the demonstrations and exercises deserve careful study, and one can learn from them even without the ability to duplicate them.)

Personal sketchbook work: Done on a separate sheet of A4 drawing paper, a ¾ view of a human skull, drawn from a real skull. This turned into an absorbing project, and I eventually spent over two hours working on it, and could easily have taken it further.



Total time: Over 3 ½ hours.



Wednesday 28 October 2009



Course work: Started on the third drawing for the “Structure” exercise; got the general outline done, but little more. I will try this one in water-soluble pencil, a medium over which I as yet have only limited control, but for which I have some expectations as a useful sketching medium.



Reading:



Bridget Woods Life Drawing

The Crowood Press, Ramsbury, Marwood, Wiltshire. 2003

Pp 154-190



(This book has a great deal of useful information for the “solo” student, but was obviously written for the classroom and the studio. I would enjoy taking a life class taught from this text.)





Personal sketchbook work: A quick sketch of the pose I’m working on (after the work I’ve done so far) with application of tone with water-soluble pencil. Then (since I had a little room left on the page) a partial manikin sketch, also done and shaded with water-soluble pencil.



Total time: About 1 ½ hours



Thursday 29 October 2009



Course work: Completed work on the third drawing for the “Structure” exercise. I have encountered a good bit of difficulty in getting my model back into exact position, even with a digital photo for guidance: as a partial solution to this problem, I have made additional sketches of my model’s visible hand and both feet (by error, I made these in my personal sketchbook, not in my course sketchbook), which I used for guidance rather than struggling with exact positioning of the hand and the feet for the remainder of the “Structure” exercise. After having completed the dry pencil work, I was almost sorry I had committed myself to water-soluble pencil, and took the precaution of photographic the drawing in this intermediate state. However, after carefully applying water with an almost-dry brush, and making a few corrections, I was satisfied with the work I had done and the medium I had selected. Total drawing time for this drawing was a bit over two hours.



Reading:



Sarah Simblet, The Drawing Book

Dorling Kindersley, London 2005

Pp 142-173



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

Harcourt College Publishers, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1997

Pp 168-189



Personal sketchbook work: Drew four little sketches of a manikin moving through a single stride, and revisited a frequent topic: a towel hanging from a hook.



Summary Observations on Structure (Check and Log): These three drawings took considerably more time than the one hour apiece suggested in the text. I used three different media, and think my handling of each was satisfactory for my present level of ability. I identified the central axis on the sitting and standing figures: the issue didn’t arise with the recumbent figure. I think that I managed the proportions fairly well, and also the foreshortening. I think that the sense of structure and form is reasonably well conveyed by these drawings. Overall, I found this an interesting and challenging exercise.



Total time: about three hours



Friday 30 October 2009



Course work: Drew the second line drawing for the “Clothed Model” exercise, using charcoal. Again, I found the line drawing impossible to do convincingly: the soft pencil used for the first drawing in the exercise and the charcoal used in this one both seem to demand addition of tone. A browse through several of my books and a look on the Internet suggests that pure line without a suggestion of tone is pretty uncommon in drapery studies. A third attempt at drawing a purely linear drapery study, using ink, proved no better.



Part of the text is omitted from the second section of the exercise. As a guess at what was desired, I divided an A3 sheet into six squares, and drew a section of material with folds and shadows in the first three of the squares, using charcoal with a few white pastel highlights.



Reading:



Allan Kraayvanger Secrets to Drawing Heads

Sterling Publishing Company, New York, 2005

Pp 6-36



Personal sketchbook work: Drew a pint jar of pickled cucumbers: enjoyed working out a way to suggest the seeds without actually drawing them.



Total time: about two hours



Saturday 31 October 2009



Course work: Drew one more 15 cm square of folds in a dropped towel.



Reading:



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

Harcourt College Publishers, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1997

Pp 193-215



Lucy Watson The Artist’s Sketchbook

North Light Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 2001

Pp 34-51





Personal sketchbook work: A sketch with graphite and colored pencil of a carved pumpkin slipping quickly into decay. This could easily have been turned into a larger project.



Total time: A bit over 1 ½ hours



Sunday 1 November 2009





Course work: Did the final two squares of randomly-folded fabric on my A3 worksheet.



Reading:



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

Harcourt College Publishers, Orlando, Florida, USA, 1997

Pp 218-247

(This book was written for a more “formal” course in figure drawing than was Bridget Woods’ Life Drawing. History, movements in figure drawing, anatomy, perspective, etc. are all dealt with in greater depth…but I think I’d enjoy a course with Bridget Woods more.)



Lucy Watson The Artist’s Sketchbook

North Light Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 2001

Pp 52-61



Personal sketchbook work: A bowl of mixed varieties of apples. Not very inspired, but the best I could manage today.



Weekly thoughts on learning experience: This week’s work brings to a close the work on the nude figure, and shifts emphasis to the clothed figure and the portrait. Most of this week’s effort was devoted to the recumbent figure, the most difficult of the three drawings in the “Structure” exercise. Although the 100+ figure drawings I have done as part of the course, along with a number of sketches from a manikin, certainly do not qualify me as even a beginning figure artist, I feel more comfortable with my ability to set something on paper that at least resembles a person, and have a better grasp of human proportions.



Total time: something over an hour





Monday 2 November 2009



Course work: Did two preparatory sketches for the “Clothed Figure” drawing, then started work on the drawing itself.



Reading:



Lucy Watson The Artist’s Sketchbook

North Light Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 2001

Pp 62-79



Other related activities: Designed and cut a linoleum block for a project of my wife’s (time not included).



Total time: just over two hours