2nd Entry for July 18, 2010

D- was working in the other studio, and these studies from two viewpoints were done over a 50-minute period - 15 minutes for the more detailed studies, 10 minutes each for the more tubular ones (which came after each of the detailed ones. They are collectively done with graphite on 24" x 36" sheet of cartridge paper.

I particularly believe that studies like this help better understand and analyse the forms of foreshortened bodies.

1st entry for July 18, 2010

It was coming up on the time to teach an intensive class called `Structural Bodies' (which just sucessfully concluded,) and I came in to warm myself up on the looking at sculptural volumes that this entails. S- was working in one studio, and this was a 2-hour study, done with graphite on 24" x 36" cartridge paper.
The legs are a little short, but it worked out quite well. I believe it is beneficial to try for this sort of cnceptualization of 3-d form on a 2-d surface every so often.

2nd Entry for July 24, 2009

For the second half of the evening I worked on a 1.5 hour study, in the `structural drawing' mode I was practising in advance of a 3-day workshop at the TSA. This is done on a 24 x 36" sheet of Durotone `white newsprint' colour paper, with 2H and 2B pencils.
The set-up was meant to evoke a cottage country roadside stand, and much of that didn't resonate with my response to Z- , but as perspective rendering challenges, the objects around her were worth setting down. Z- insisted I include the plastic dinosaur. I was more than happy to honour that request, as I've never encountered a Dimetrodon I didn't like - and this one was very cute.
As with all these blog entries, if you click on any of these images, you can see a larger-scale version of them.

3rd entry for June 30, 2009

These were 20-minute poses as well. Having done a couple of good sensitive studies, I devoted the last stretch of the evening to some further 'structural' studies of D- .They are done with a 2B pencil on 24 x 36" cartridge paper.

As with any of the studies posted here, if you click on an image, you can see an enlarged version of it.

5th entry for June 28, 2009

I was sufficiently successful in setting down some sensitive studies of J- in the first part of the evening, so I returned to my `training' for the Structural Bodies' workshop I'm doing in a few weeks. A friend was asking why I wasn't drawing more 'little boxes' in the figures, as an animator was showing that approach to her. So I endeavoured to project more boxy forms into J-. It sort of works on the rbb/shoulder and hip areas of a person, on heads and on the palms of hands, but personally, I see bodies much more in tubular and conic terms than on boxy ones.
There was an artist - Luca Cambiaso - whose drawings interpreted bodies as box forms, but I still find that a hard one to wrap my head around.

The sitting and standing studies were 15 and 20 minutes, and drawn with a 2h and a 2b pencil on 24 x 36 cartridge paper. The reclining pose was 20 minutes, but I stayed on and worked on the space and model stand for over an hour on top of that.

1st entry for June 28, 2009

This study marks a change in pace, In a month I am going to be having a 3-day workshop at TSA called "Structural Bodies". The workshop will get people to use principles of perspective and rendering to describe bodies as 3-d volumes in space. I am starting to put myself into training on this, so a number of studies in the next while will emphasize structural aspects of body form.
It's always there when drawing people, but the aim here is to make those volumes extra-evident.

I had 2 hours of drawing time with T- on the Sunday afternoon at TSA. Afterwards I stayed on an extra hour to add in furniture & room information.

The study was done on 24 x 36 cartridge paper, using H and 2B pencils. The marks are complex enough that I've included a detail here.