For the first time in a while we finally had a female model to draw. Again I made a concious effort to break away from my usual pencil/fineliner sketches and used a lot more varying techniques.
First sketches with pencils. 3 minutes each.
In this sketch we had 3 minutes to draw the model using straight lines. My approach to this was to use a magenta felt tip to draw lots of small straight lines. However I wasn't very pleased with the result, it was harder to get down a good draught of the model and so some of the proportions were off. If I tried this again I would probably try it with a medium that could be built up in layers such as charcoal or pencil.
This was an experiment I liked slightly more. Instead of drawing with only straight lines, in this I used flowing, bubbly circle lines. Again I tried a felt tip, this time choosing a blue one because bubbles remind me of the ocean, and I thought that the way I could build up the density of the circles was a great way to discern areas of light and shadow.
And then this was my favourite of the three line experiments. Again using felt tip, choosing a navy blue, this was a continuous line drawing that I actually really liked. Usually I'm not the biggest fan of line drawings as I'm more accustomed to using small sketchy strokes but while I was drawing it I thought it almost looked like a puppet doll with the separations at each joint like the elbows, knees and shoulders. After that I tried to keep the rest of the drawing in the same vein and I feel really happy with the outcome.
This was a drawing with a dark charcoal pencil. After drawing out the figure, I added some tone using the charcoal pencil and smudged it with my fingertip to add a softer touch. Although unfinished I think the tone adds a lot of depth to the image and I like the expression the model is holding.
This was a drawing with coloured pencil. I find coloured pencils a lot different to regular pencils to draw with in that they tend to wear down a lot quicker and it can be hard to get a fine, sharp point. However this was a coloured pencil drawing I liked (apart from the feet and head) because I took my time with this and carefully added lines and small areas of tone. I tried to draw the feet more closely because they were at an odd angle but I don't feel I was successful with this because I couldn't quite get the foreshortening on the feet down properly.
Throughout the longer poses I moved around to be able to capture the same pose at different angles. Again using felt tip, I thought this was a decent attempt at the angle because the foreshortening of the body can be quite difficult to get right.
Then I tried using some A3 size paper instead of my usual square sketchbook. For this drawing I used graphite sticks, a 2B and a 9B. I used the 9B to sketch out the general figure and too add tone, while the 2B was used to draw details and strengthen lines.
Again I used graphite for this drawing, however I only used the 2B for the face because the 9B was too soft to record the details properly. This was my favourite drawing of the session because I think I've got the anatomy of the model down accurately and I really enjoyed working larger with the graphite.
Then when I had some time left over I tried drawing with fineliner. It took me a little longer to get to this stage than with the graphite as I had to think more about where I would put my lines and how strong they should be at each part. Even though I didn't finish it I'm happy with the progress I made in regards to drawing with fineliner and I will definitely try it again.
