Figure Drawing Techniques...Dividing the Page

Last Thursday night we drew from the lovely miss Stephanie...she has been a wonderful model for me - several of the paintings in my shop are of Stephanie. She has a fabulous, curvacious figure that creates beautiful forms.

I wanted to do something a little different, so before she took her pose I divided a large piece of watercolor paper into squares.

Then, when I was drawing, I moved around Stephanie and drew from several different angles. Sometimes I would use several squares for one view, other times just one small square.

I only shaded the first couple of drawings - after I filled in a few squares, I had the feeling that just the line was going to be necessary for my next step (painting over the drawing) so I stopped shading.


Well even though only Arianna slept today I got to start painting while Jack was playing in the back yard. I started with a little watercolor, just to get some color on the surface. I also used a clear glaze in a few areas where I wanted to save the line quality of the initial drawing. Then I started to paint, using blue painters' tape to work each square individually, even if the drawing was larger than one square.

Anyway, it's just the beginning, but I like it so far!