Over the
past few weeks, I have had both positive and negative attitudes towards the
various techniques required to draw the life model. I enjoyed using certain
materials like water-colour paints and coloured pencils, since it was something
I knew I could do well with; but when using materials like charcoal, it didn’t
always end in the result I wanted. I found this quite frustrating. Getting the
body proportions to be accurate on my model drawing was also a challenge for
me; mostly because of the body posing, and especially with the legs and arms.
After
looking at Erik Gist’s work, of life model drawings with charcoal, I can see
the attention to each joint on the body which I really like as it defines each
body part (Website: Watts Atelier of the Arts: Watts Atelier, 25/10/13). This is one of his works; a 20 minute figure
drawing. The body qualities are really defined in the darker areas, and the
shadows are evident which gives the model a background, rather than just levitating
on a piece of paper. When I give tone to my work, it does turn out very well
but I want to make it more realistic. However, my drawings are too small so I
can’t use my charcoal to shade in specific details. What I also like about his
work is that he can get the proportions incredibly accurate which at the moment
I have trouble achieving, but only with the legs as they are smaller than the
rest of the body.
I am going
to solve this by doing practice drawings of legs in my sketchbooks and using my
friends and myself as leg models. I also need to work on how I shade in certain
parts of the body that have shadows as I can sometimes shade too hard and too much
which can result in my drawing to become messy and flat. If I could have handled
my proportions from different angles like Gist has done here, my pieces would
improve so much with whatever material I use, especially with charcoal.
Frida
Kahlo, who was well known for her self-portraits, is one of my favourite
artists because of how well she observed herself when painting. I really like
how she captures every detail on her face, but what I really find interesting
about her work is that she often painted herself in backgrounds with objects
that were considered surreal. For example, this is one of her most famous
pieces, known as ‘The Hummingbird,’ which was considered to be an example of
surrealism among the critics (Website: Mental_Floss- Kirsty Puchko, 01/06/15). However,
she claimed that she was only her own ‘reality’, where she felt most
comfortable. Since my portraits of models don’t have any background to them, I feel it would be good
for me to experiment by putting a model in a background or give them an item to
represent something about them. I have done some of my models with two sets of
water-colours, which I feel represents the darkness and lightness of the
model’s position. Having a background based on surrealism would be an
interesting theme for my model drawings. My water-colour portraits are probably
my best ones as I can blend in the colours extremely well and really define the
different types of shading on the body with it. Both of my pink and purple have
worked very well here for the light and shadows but if I would have used
Kahlo’s ‘reality’ background for the model, I feel it would have looked so much
better.
Vincent
Van Gogh’s work also stands out to me because of his style of painting as it
really looks mysterious and could have many story lines entwined into it.
Although he doesn’t do as many self-portraits as Kahlo and Gist, he does do
wonderful landscapes. My favourite piece of his work is ‘Starry Night’ (Website:
VanGoughGallery, Unidev, 2002-2015). I love it because of the way he has used
his paints as the strokes are quite long and because of the way they bend
across the sky, it really looks enchanting. As far as paint goes, I have only
used it to blend colours together rather than define each stroke individually
to form a picture. I would very much like to use this style in my own work
rather than just stick to one way of using paint since it will give my work greater
depth and different variety of techniques. I feel that this would make a detailed
and unique style for a background for a model and it’s the same with Kahlo’s
‘reality’ backgrounds. I think that the
biggest mistake with my portraits is that they are all too organised and basic.
I feel as if I need to be more care-free and relaxed with how I draw and paint,
rather than feel anxious with getting everything perfect in the first attempt.
That means that I have to go bigger with the model’s size and include more for
the background, whether it be tonal work or an actual landscape. This could
also be something that I could practise with by using the university campus as a
background since the fallen leaves create a beautiful atmosphere and landscape
with their vibrant colours. As is evident with my work here, I attempted to
give a coloured shadow to the model. This did not turn out the way I wanted to
as it just looked like the colours had just formed too much with the water and
just turned into a messy puddle. The colours have blended well on the model but
I feel it doesn’t show the shadows or light at all. This is why I think Gough’s
style of painting would work much better on the model as each stroke of paint
would define the model more to look more realistic with light and shadows too.
During
the next semester, I would definitely like to improve in drawing accurate body
proportions and using my materials differently each time, like just blending
and using paints like Gough has. I hope to progress more smoothly with drawing
models next year as I have some experience in drawing them now.
(1008 words)
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