I was so happy to get back to the figure drawing studio yesterday after the month’s break. I was prepared to be stiff, but actually right from the warmup gestures I could tell I was having a good day. I resolved to keep that fast, loose approach going in the longer poses. It worked pretty well for the seven-minutes:
In fact, the third 7-minute pose yielded my favorite drawing of the morning:
The light on the torso is what I loved most, and what came through. It was less successful on her right arm.
The poses got longer and if I was done and in danger of overworking something, or just dissatisfied, midway through, I flipped over the page and started a second one. So these two five-minute bits emerged from a 10- and 20-minute pose:
The vast expanses of back and belly, with their subtle shadings, are often beyond me. I put in too many marks or make them too dark, or else I back off entirely and the whole thing ends up flat. Yesterday I was able to evoke something of those slight changes in tone, like in the back on the first drawing, the belly in the second, and the arm here:
Three slightly longer poses. I was done with this next one after 15 minutes. I got the proportions wrong and made her too stocky–she’s actually very slim–but I wasn’t going to erase and fix it (almost impossible to do much of that on newsprint anyway). I was trying to keep my hand moving and focus on the light. Wherever I can see that light in the drawings, it makes me ecstatic. I never could understand the Impressionist obsession with evoking light, but I get it now. Though frankly, the Dutch masters’ success in this area left nothing to improve on, in my opinion.
In this next one the light ended up a little lurid. Not sure why. But it’s a sign of my erring on the side of boldness and high contrast, and that’s good.
The wrinkles on the bottom of a foot are a puzzle to me. Maybe the next few times the pose makes them visible, I should focus entirely on them and see if I can figure it out. Other than that and whatever happened with the calf, and once again making her torso look wider than it is, I like this last one pretty well. The light works in several places.
Sermons in Stones 
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January 9, 2013 at 6:01 am
Laurel McClure
I think of the Dutch masters, or at least Rembrandt, as portraying dark almost more than light, light nearly swallowed up by dark, shining forth within the dark and illuminating just certain surfaces or aspects of a figure. What stays with me is the portrayal of figures in very limited light, candlelight or lamplight, with vast blocks of shadow–which was of course the way people lived, at this time of year, after sundown, until the advent of the electrical light. A little glow of light pushing back on encroaching shadow. The impressionists stay in my mind as trying to capture outdoor light, sunlight, sun dappling water, leaves, grass in summertime. They seem like painters from the other season, the summer rather than winter solstice. Movement of light in the natural world. That has to be an oversimplification of both schools, but those are the impressions that linger. Beautifully said, Laurel. You’re right–they are very different qualities of light. Now I’m thinking about whether it really takes different techniques, or a different way of seeing, to capture different kinds of light. –AZM
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