Figure Drawing Techniques...Black on Black

I have posted several drawings on grey background (I usually use a medium grey mat board) but this is the first I have done on a black background. I love drawing James - he has a great figure, and his poses range from incredible dramatic to subtly beautiful. I had scheduled him for our modeling session last night, and I knew that it would be a great challenge to start on a very dark background and just bring out the highlights on his skin.

This was an awesome pose for this challenge - the lighting was creating excellent shadows, and because his head is shaved it really allowed for a clean, masculine look to the drawing.

His deep brown skin creates a huge array of colors in the highlights and shadows - ranging from icy blue highlights to red-umber reflective light.

It was a challenge working on the black surface -I had to be careful not to get too chalky with my colors, and some of the deeper richer colors were losing their impact on the black.

But overall I am very pleased!

James also did this curvy back pose for us - the ess in the spine and that very unique shadow on the back were challenging to draw. I switched to warmer tones for this drawing.

The last drawing is Diane from our Wednesday night class at Shane's studio. It's watercolor pencil on watercolor paper mounted to foam core. I like the colors and the pose and I feel like I created a strong sense of where the light source was coming from, but next time I think I'll start with my warm colors and work towards cool...here I did the opposite and never quite warmed up her skin tone.


O well...that's why I continue to draw from the live model - always something new to learn!