Female Figure with Drapery and Stockings - the final touches in pastel

I finished working on this beautiful figure with a white silk robe and striped thigh high stockings.  The brick red colourfix paper gives the whole drawing a sense of warmth.  I love the way turquoise blue pastel pencil reacts against the color of the red paper...causing a little vibration on the surface.  That effect, combined with the pattern in her stockings and the folds of the robe, create a truly dynamic composition.

I'm working on producing prints of these latest pastels.  Keep an eye on my Etsy shop where they will be available soon.

The Girl with the Butterfly Tattoos. New model, new figure drawings

As luck would have it, just as I was scheduling models for our February drawing sessions, I got a phone call from (what sounded like) a lovely young woman looking for modeling work.  After a brief chat, I scheduled her for our group that met last Thursday evening and was thrilled to meet such a beautiful woman who was also a terrific model!  She also had a fabulous collection on tattoos running down her leg...9 beautiful butterflies.  I am hoping that our next scheduled drawing session together I get to work more on adding those details to my drawings!

Our first drawing of the night was only 20 minutes long, so I focused on blocking in the large areas of light and shadow.  From my vantage point this was pretty much two large areas - the hi lights along her left side and the shadows along her back.  Once those two shapes were defined, I played within the shapes, finding variations of value and warmth.  I'm happy with everything except her face...I need to soften the information.

This beautiful zig-zag pose also had a dramatic pattern of light and shadow, especially on her face.  There was a cool line of dark blue next to the hi light on her cheekbone, and the reflective light on her jawline was almost glowing with a warm orange.

Hi-lights can seem to "pop" more when they are surrounded by both a cool and warm tone.

The final pose was very sensual...a lounging pose with her head dropped back on the stool and her leg stretched out before her.  I worked on a piece of wallis paper, thinking I would work in pastel, but after my first layer of periwinkle Nupastel I changed my mind - grabbing a cup of water, my brush and my watercolor pencils.  I washed over the pastel with water, moving around the pigment and fixing the shapes of the shadows.  Then I started to draw with the watercolor pencils, adding in some sap greens, purples and oranges. 

I probably would have worked on it a little more, but I think I got the paper too wet, because as I tried to draw with my watercolor pencils they scratched into the surface instead of gliding on it.  I am not sure why that happened, most of the time the Wallis paper is incredibly durable and allows me to work extensively.

But all that asside...I love the look of this drawing,  I think it's simple and sexy.

New Figure Drawings of the Female Nude - Charcoal and Pastel

As usual figure drawing group was a welcome activity on Wednesday evening! It is so wonderful to have that time dedicated for figure drawing. I look forward to it every week!

This is a five minute drawing. I loved how our model chose casual, relaxed poses that gave a lot of curves in her form.

We worked from the next pose for about an hour with a short break. I chose to draw on a white pastel board, and I used charcoal pencil and a water wash. I loved the way the water effected the charcoal that was already on the board, plus how it changed the way the charcoal looked if i drew on top of an area that was already wet - the charcoal looked much darker and glided on the surface creating a different type of mark.

The detail above shows some of the variety of mark-making achieved with the charcoal pencil and the wet brush.

Other than working a bit on the profile (I'd like the face to feel softer, especially around the nose) I am pretty pleased with the drawing.I had in mind for a quick abstract pastel that my palette would be borrowed from one of my FAVORITE lace-cap hydrangeas that is blooming in a yard close to my house ( I swear if it wasn't morally reprehensible I would steal it in the middle of the night!) The flowers are a gorgeous periwinkle blue mixed with white and the stems are a deep reddish brown. I'll try to take a picture so I can show you the colors that inspired the palette above!

More original drawings of the female figure.

Figure Drawings...A Classic Charcoal Drawing of the Female Model, and a Pastel Experiment with Red Line

For the first half of our figure drawing group last night I focused on doing a traditional, realistic and fully rendered portrait of our wonderful model. The lighting was great, the pose was classic, and I really focused on trying to make a "good" drawing.

Sometimes I have to remind myself to slow down, look, really draw what I see - don't go too crazy with color all the time. I'm pretty pleased with this drawing - I like the composition and the values I captured. I wish I had a little more detail in the drapery, but it's not too bad.

But, I couldn't stop there...you know me by now...I have to draw to sides of every model! And the idea of drawing with the red line was still itching me, so I tried it again. This time I started with a light pencil drawing, then did a red line over the contour, then slowly built up shadows with sap green, pale blue, and pthalo blue.

I like the way the colors worked together, and I think it's an interesting drawing - one that you could look at again and again and still find new moments. Now I want to try a new color for a contour line every time I draw!

Figure Drawing Techniques...5

Black and white figure drawings can lead to succesful figure drawings in color. Black and white allows you to focus on proportion and a range of value. When you add color, there is a whole new element that you must study in order to use it succesfully.

The color phenomenon that I want to talk about here is the relationship of blue and red, and how the pairing of blue and red can enhance a drawing.

In this figure drawing, there were two different light sources falling accross the figure. If I treated the light the same way on both sides of the figure, the figure would have appeared flat. By choosing to have a warm (red) side and a cool blue side, it adds dimension to the figure.

Red and blue have a jarring personality - take a bright true blue and place it next to a true red and your eye vibrates a little. The eye does not read red and blue in the same way, causing a vibration (this phenomenon always makes me think of 3D glasses). As artists we can use this to our advantage.

When you have a highlight, such as the one on her hand, you can make the white highlight "pop" a little by using a shade of red on one side and a shade of blue on the other.

Highlights will appear brighter if you use a warm color on one side and a cool color on the other.

Fellow artists - have you used red and blue with a purpose? Share your work and your technique! Post a comment and a link to your work!