Life Drawing at the Old Safe House Atelier

So here we are 4 months in and thanks to the holidays I was able to put the last touch ups, frame the work, call them done and move on :-) , happy with the results, I hope you like it, bellow you'll find them individually.

2011

Pencil on paper

18X24

2011

Pencil on paper

14X20

2011

Pencil on paper

18X24

2011

Pencil on paper

11X17

NEW YEAR 2012!!! New drawing, here is the blocking sketch, starting to shade the face at the very early steps, needs to be softer. Still eager to paint and guess what, the oil paintings and boards just arrived!

Oh my forth drawing in progress, blocking is going faster now, happy with the proportions even more, shading in progress.

Here is my third drawing, happy with the results, progress made, lots learned, lots to learn, excited about the new one, in a couple of months who knows all will be instinct and may see some chances to paint!

Another blockin, proportions are good, but now I see some areas that could had rechecked, these drawing processes are to create shades at the right tone on the first time hitting the paper, to shade forms correctly base on its light source and proportions to be solid, so that moving to painting colors on oil becomes all about colors and not fixing patchy foundations.

This is my second drawing, unfortunately, I had to leave on vacation and didn't get to finish it, like her left side and head. Even though, I feel that's a good improvement from the previous.

Here is the sketch and initial shading of the areas in shadow according to the set light source.

So I went to this life drawing with my usual mind, draw as fast as you can, animation style, before the model changes pose, there it was, my familiar scribble proudly done in 2 minutes, and I look around and people have barely touched their papers, they had crazy plumb lines, measuring devices, some were walking around, others had sewing needles to measure the width vs height. I sure knew i was doing something wrong, and boy I still am, but I'm learning quickly!

Ironing out the shadows terminators, this will later serve for many things, one of them is to shade it with a technique of the old masters, avoiding multiple bounce lights and focusing on one first allows you to maintain your work within your grasp and allow to identify your problems so that they can be solved before extra complexity is added, a little bit like rendering in maya but without AO, raytrace, bounce, only one strong direct light.

It all starts here, the most important part, on the foundation of the proportions, look at an Alfons Mucha painting and you will see why it makes all the difference.