Thursday, March 12, 2009

Building Layers of Color in a Figure Drawing of a Black Male Model

Our very lucky figure drawing group had the incredible james model for us last night! He is one of the best! His gesture poses are phenomenal - this is a quick shot of one of his two-minute poses. By the time we are done with gestures, we are all wiped out! (PS...always ask the model's permission before taking photos!)
After gestures we set up a long pose. I was working on a grey piece of mat board and started blocking in the form with a lilac pastel for the highlights and a blue Nupastel for the shadows - being careful not too get too dark or specific too early in the drawing (this pose will go for 2 hours)

I then started to add warmer colors to the highlights and further define the form.


I took some time to start developing the head/face - there was such an amazing highlight on his forehead.

But I was spending TOO MUCH TIME ON THE FACE. So I put a sticky-note on it and forced myself to develop the whole drawing at the same time.

Right at the end I added a little bit of light sap green to the environment - finding that little triangle of light under the arm on our left. I think that helped to define the space. Overall I'm pretty happy with the drawing, and I think there's a focus on the face, while still providing enough information about the whole figure.

No comments: