Part 4 Project 2 Exercise 1 Quick Studies

For this set of studies I had my model lying on a bed with his Kindle. I then proceeded to make several gestural drawings of varying poses. Initially I found the foreshortened areas particularly difficult to get into proportion. Arms looked like they were floating instead of resting on the bed and his feet often appeared like flippers. The final drawing of this set of three looked more proportioned, but the torso was a little too long, making my model look like an Avatar.

For my two larger 10-minute drawings, I used the lighting from the side window to try to highlight the musculature. I feel like my final sketch here has a better sense of proportion. The shoulders leading down towards the waist form almost a triangle. Whereas the curvature of the legs and hips form almost a right angled triangle. The arm propping up the head also forms a triangle. So the whole pose can be analyzed into triangular shapes.

After completing these graphite sketches, I decided to try something completely different. I made a quill pen and sketched an overhead view of my model using white crayon and ink washes, strengthened by expressive strokes created with the quill. The marks were very varied, and at times difficult to control, but in many ways this is a more expressive sketch.

I did not quite get the angle of the shoulders right as the right-hand shoulder should no be larger than the left.

What I realized after processing the first photograph, was that I did not have enough shadow around my figure to make him appear to be lying on the bed. I went back and added some more shadows around the torso and head.

Quill pen and ink study with crayon and ink wash.

Final version with additional shadows.