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. . . when the only reason to keep photos of the drawings seems to be so that when I look back on several months of work, I’ll remember that there are bad days. At least, that’s what I thought looking over my drawings last night. But because I was having a hard time, I tried to change things up. I drew this really dark, for example. I tend to go too light, exacerbated when the model has really light skin, and on a bad day I go lighter because I’m feeling tentative. I don’t want to commit to anything I put on paper. For the same reason, I draw more slowly when I’m thinking everything I’m doing stinks. So I forced myself to use only the darkest charcoal and work fast and with minimum pauses on this one, and it helped loosen me up.
I even ventured into territory I’ve mostly stayed out of and started drawing her face. The head is too small in proportion to the body, but each on its own is not bad. I stared at that right thigh, trying to find a change in tone in it, and whatever was there was too subtle for me. Leaving it blank makes it look flat.
The drawing I was happiest with was this one. I sweated over that first-finger knuckle. Just about gave up on its looking like anything except a glaring white circle on a dark expanse, but when I walked away and came back to look at the drawing, there it was, looking almost real. So was the vein in the arm, which I’d given up as a failure. Drawing is like magic.
An interesting problem raised by this last one: how to show the different textures of skin and cloth. I just left the cloth more or less blank–it wasn’t what interested me this time–but I’ll have to go back to it sometime. I remember having an exercise like that back in Drawing 101, a class in which I struggled mightily–no, that makes it sound like I worked really hard and wrestled with my demons, when actually what I did was mostly avoid drawing and hide from my demons. We were supposed to draw different textures, so I drew a skirt hanger with four skirts on it; one was corduroy, I recall, and one thin cotton. Maybe that would be just the thing to try again.
I wasn’t going to show the lousy ones, but that’s not fair. Here are a couple I wanted to scrunch into a ball and throw away. Stiff, tentative . . . yep, there are days like that. I had fun just the same. Also, one of the CDs played was The Ghost of Tom Joad, a Springsteen album I don’t remember hearing before. A good day after all.
Nothing to do with Black History Month–just three more drawings from last Monday and my ongoing adventure of trying to draw hands.
I love this model and wish he worked in the studio more often, especially now that I’m drawing lots of hands and feet. His are wonderfully veiny. Still, something that figure drawing has taught me is that there is no such thing as an uninteresting or un-beautiful human body, so I’ll enjoy all the other models too, until he comes around again.
I’d left the house in a hurry, chivvying the child, and forgotten my drawing stuff, so I only had the studio’s charcoal: no pencils, and I could only find very dark and very light charcoal. This has happened before and makes for an interesting challenge: to use the edge and corners of the charcoal for fine lines, and develop a light touch with very soft, dark charcoal. The latter in particular is tough for me, and I got better at it today.
(Click on images to enlarge)
My favorites from last week’s session
and today’s.
What’s going on in my head in the studio has changed so much in the past few months. The idea that the main effort in making a drawing might be to portray the light is one I’ve heard many times before, as has anyone who grew up in an era that adores the Impressionists. But that I would make that my aim, myself, is completely new. It’s as if I have never seen the way the light falls (I won’t say “seen the light”!)–at least not in quite this way, with this attention.
Recently I was playing the piano, which I do very badly, and Joy, who does it very well and is a good teacher, said, “The whole phrase is about that G. That’s what you want to be aiming for. Not by making it louder . . . “
How, then, I asked?
“Mostly you just think about it.”
So I played it again, thinking about it. I couldn’t hear the difference, yet, but she could, and said, “Exactly!”
That’s what drawing with an eye on the light is like. Of course I’ve always seen the light on a person’s arm as I drew the arm. But now I am aiming to draw the light. It makes a big difference.
My figure drawing time resumed on Monday after a month away. It felt great to be drawing again. I spread them out on the kitchen floor after dinner and the munchkin and I looked them over. She said this was the best one “because it looks like a person.” It didn’t look much like the person I was drawing, so it was nice to see it through the eyes of someone who couldn’t compare the two.
She also liked this one, which is the one I like best,
and this.
She wanted to know why I draw all in black, white, and gray, instead of in color the way she does. I told her the truth, which is that it’s hard enough for me to manage black and white and I’m not up for the challenge of color right now. She also asked why I draw people naked instead of in their clothes. I said because that way I can see a lot of the beautiful parts that clothes cover up. She looked unconvinced. I think for her, clothes are more interesting and probably more beautiful.
When I told Munchkin I had been working on the veins of hands and feet, she jumped up to point them all out on the drawings. I explained what I found difficult and interesting about them, leading to a question from M: “What does subtle mean?”
The other subtle thing I decided to tackle today is the highlight that runs right along some places, like the muscles of calf and thigh here. I have never paid it enough attention and it comes out looking streaky, obvious (not subtle!), or nonexistent. Monday I really tried to look at it and see what its edge looks like. It was so absorbing that in twenty minutes, I never really got to any other part of the drawing, not even the knee, which looks kind of flat as a result.
There’s been no one drawing I’m very happy with over the past few weeks, but certain bits make me say, “That’s what I’m trying to do”: in the shadow of a hand, the folds of skin under a breast, the pressure of a finger on a shoulder, the wrinkle of an elbow, the veins of a foot, the fall of a shadow.
I haven’t posted any drawings in ages. It’s too much trouble to scan them, and they mostly don’t fit on the scanner, but today I got smart and photographed them instead.
They all have their strengths and weaknesses–for example, the second one is entirely unclear on the whole left half, but I like the elbow–but I’m particularly happy with the last two. What seized my attention in both poses was the light on his hand, and I caught it here to my more-or-less satisfaction.
It’s been mostly hands in drawing class the past couple of sessions. Here are some from two weeks ago.
Hands are so complex and expressive that it’s almost like drawing the human body for the first time. I’m stiff and uncertain. I’m just trying to get my eyes and hands familiar with the forms, and while I am not technique-focused, Michael is right: when you’re making the drawing happen more than letting it happen, you sacrifice a certain responsiveness. More spontaneity may be on the other side of this immersion in a new focus, but it may not. I find it very hard to zero in on details without also losing the power of my own responsive gestures; I can feel myself getting picky and narrow.
I’m also trying to shake up my figure drawing, which has become more stiff recently. I don’t know if I’ll stick to hands today, but I’m going to try to work fast and let instinct come to the fore.
From today’s session. Many frustrations and excitements trying to draw hands, mostly, and in one pose, feet. Each is like a whole body itself.
Too big to scan in one piece, from last Monday:
Today’s model had captivating hands:
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