Longer Drawings

We got to do a lot of drawing this week! In both classes we did longer drawings, which I think I learned a lot from by recognizing a few bad habits. I tend to look at my paper more than the model and I get hung up on the details far too early in the drawing. Aside from the longer drawings we worked on more the spine and drawing the egg shapes for the rib cage. Doing these exercises really makes it clear that I need to work on line economy. I tend to have to look for the correct shape and thus make a ton of overlapping lines on the paper. I am really beginning to notice just how distracting and ugly this can be. I have started to draw a line or shape above the paper a few times until I really know what I want to put down. I don’t think it is really doing anything yet but hopefully I will get better as I practice.

While doing our longer drawings I noticed I was able to distinguish the different planes on the body much more easily that before. I think using contours has really helped. It is exciting to see a drawing evolve and really take shape in (what looks like) three dimensions. I feel like am also noticing differences in form more adeptly. That said, my drawings are still full of errors but I feel like am noticing them quickly. Ah well, I look forward to when I can look back and really notice an improvement.

The image below is the second drawing we did on Tuesday. Obviously it isn’t finished but I like where it was headed. This drawing took 25 minutes and went through quite a few revisions. I am really looking forward to when we do even longer drawings!