Friday, August 20, 2010

Shadow and Light - Dynamic Drawings of the Male Nude

I've said it before, I'll say it again...Wednesday our group had one of the best male model's I've ever worked with.  He studies poses, knows how his body "works", he's even said "when I get into a pose, I can just 'tell' when it looks right".  Truly - our model is gifted!  It's hard to believe he didn't start doing this until he was 50 years old. 

Well I have no gesture drawings to show you, because I was too busy taking a thousand photos of his awesome poses.  (With his permission, of course, and no, you can't see them! Get your own male model LOL!)

But here is a twenty minute pose.  I love these compact poses, where he becomes one mass of muscles and light and shadow.  I like how just a little bit of his foot caught the light.


That is actually the shape of the paper - a tall rectangle.  It adds to the emotive quality of the drawing, the quiet, all of that negative space above.  I think I will push the values a little further.

The second drawing was about 40 minutes, and I was working on a dark brown piece of colourfix paper. 

I was kind of standing in the dark, so I really didn't notice that I was making it SO colorful! The model actually looked at it afterwards and said "I look like a struttin' peacock!"  I thought that was funny!

On this dark paper, especially with the light forming very few intense highlights, I forced myself to stick to my darker Nupastels for the first 38 minutes - only bringing out the very light few for the last few moments, accenting the brightest moments - and only a few of those.


I had actually just organized by Nupastels into three boxes - the lightest, the reds, and the blues.  (I was going to say "warm and cool". but even within the reds and blues, the temperatures vary.

The last drawing, which is far from complete, is on a dark brown piece of mat board.  Again I started with the medium to dark pastels, blocking in large shapes and reflective light.  I was avoiding detail until everything was working together overall.


Luckily I got a photo, so I am looking forward to finishing this drawing.

And here is a drawing I started in the studio today, from a session with this male model and a female model we had a few weeks ago...watercolor pencil on Clayboard.


5 comments:

Fay Akers said...

He does pose well. I miss drawing from a live model. Even though most of our models were not that buff LOL it still is a different feel to draw.

AmyC ~ said...

I really like the 'struttin' peacock' very colorful!!!

brenda said...

you have a beautiful sense of light!

And I agree, it's so good when you get a model who knows their 'craft'

Krystyna81 said...

Fay you should call around to the local museums/galleries/art supply stores and see if anyone is getting a group together. Or stop at the local college and see if they have any open studio sessions. Even once a month is better than never :)

Giani said...

As a person who does a lot of photography, I agree that a model who knows their body well makes your life so much easier. It gives you that much more time to focus on your own craft and your own ideas.