Drawing From Life

my set-up at Atelier 2302

In mid-September drawing class resumed at Atelier 2302 and I picked up from where I left off. With three "Bargues" of increasing difficulty under my belt, I have now moved on to working from life. I spent three weeks drawing different angles of three different casts: a horse's head, a bust of an old man, and a skull. My task was to create a construct of the subject, finding the essence of the big, over-all shape in as few lines as possible. I was off to a rocky start with that horse's head, but each attempt after that continued to see improvement. 

I have now begun working on my actual project, an ear. It is really hard to see the construct in the above two photos, but trust me, it's there and I have worked out the over-all shapes of the big form without getting bogged down in details (an urge I have to fight). In this construct I have also worked out the shadow shape, separating the lights and darks into big groupings. You can see in the below photo what I was working on today. I filled in the shadow shape with a flat, even tone and as soon as that was done I could see areas that needed correcting- it was actually pretty cool. I find it surprising how much it looks like an ear considering the simplicity of the information.

The learning curve continues and sometimes I feel overwhelmed with my lack of knowledge, but I shall persevere! I hope someday this is all second nature.

Bargue #3

 

Bargue # 3

articulated construct

graphite on bond paper

In this next step of the Bargue drawing I am working out the "articulated construct". Once all of the outside lines are determined (and they may still change as more measurements and alignments take place) then it is time to hone in on the inside shapes. At this point all of the smaller shapes within the "envelope" of the larger shapes can be mapped out. Heights and widths within the big form are found using alignments and comparative measure. Fun and challenging!

A Day of Barguing

Bargue #3

gestural construct

graphite on bond paper

About a month ago I began my third Bargue drawing (based on the Charles Bargue drawing course) at Atelier 2302. I absolutely love this plate and hope that I will be able to do it justice. The second Bargue I worked on increased in difficulty from the first Bargue and now this third one is upping the ante yet again. Basically I am now at the level where the horizontal and vertical grid used for measuring is gone, I am creating my own gestural construct as opposed to copying it and I am enlarging the image so it is no longer one-to-one measurement. Yowsie! 

In the image above I am working out the gestural construct which is the start of the drawing (the image I am showing you is slightly further along than the initial gestural construct). Everything is kept very simple at this initial stage- mostly finding the outside shapes and the essence of the subject in as few lines as possible. Here all of the big shapes are determined, these will then contain all of the smaller shapes that will be worked out in the articulated construct. Working from big to small- that's what I am doing. Comparative measure is used to get this work done. A unit of measurement is chosen on the plate- I chose the lower right-hand vertical section of the base on which the figure is sitting. I enlarged it by about 25-30% when I moved that measurement over to the bond paper and now all else will be compared to that as I move lines and shapes over. It is hard to describe- sorry I am not doing a great job. Also, sorry my drawing is rather light and hard to see at this point.

I never seem to have the time (or make the time) to work on my drawing at home so I have decided to add in the Thursday afternoon drawing class this way Thursday is now a full day dedicated to the Bargues and my learning at the Atelier. I am usually a fairly patient person, but I really want to progress a bit more rapidly as I make my way to painting the figure.

Next stage of the Bargue tomorrow.