ASS3 - Project 1 - Observing the Human Figure

Exercise Drawing the human figure

For this exercise I  am going to sketch my fiance Antonio. I have got him sitting in a chair for me. Hes playing on his computer, looking at the screen with a controller in his hands. I am sketching from his left side first. I notice the way he is a little bit slouched into the chair and that his right foot is lying on top of his left bottom leg and foot.

10.12am - I have just done a quick sketch of this and I somehow have made him look wider in the chest then he is. I have drawed in a basic chair for not as I am only concentrating on the figure. I have decided my next angle is going to be in front of him. 
10.20am - Sitting here I instantly notice his legs. They are a great angle to draw to show shortfortening in my drawing. I have sketched him now and I really like this angle. I think it has a bit of character to it. I have made him look too thin on this one in the chest. I really need to look at this issue again. 

11am - I have drawing two more sketches but I still really like the one I did when I drawed him from the from. I am now going to sketch it again try to get the body right and add in the detail of the chair.
11.20 - I really like this final sketch, I have got his proportions as I see it and his chest area looks a lot better. I am now ready to paint.

Exercise Lina Figure Study

Firstly I have just done a wash on the paper and left it to dry. I have then used a watered down paint and painted on his body pose using my skeleton lines. Next I have added in the shaped to add to the volume. I have now used a darker paint and with a thin brush gone around the main lines to create shape.
I have just added a few bits of colour to fill in the shapes and I think I am finished. I have not tried to be neat and I have just been a bit more looser. I feel its quite hard for me to do, but I will try to break my habit of spending too long on a painting. 

I think the outcome came out really well and I feel I have completed the main objective to show that I can drawn line of a figure.

Exercise Tonal Study

      For this my friend agreed to model for me, she took some persuading but I made sure she was comfortable. For a exercise to show tone, I wanted to see more flesh. I got my model to pose with a scarf. She did not want to be taken from the front view, so I asked if I could paint her from the back and she was happy enough to do that. I got a lamp on the left hand side of her to add light and she messed around with the scarf. She actually got a look going on that was elegant and with her body arched to the right. I started to sketch her out firstly in a cylindrical form. This did help me to create volume of her body and get the correct shape. I then did a pencil sketch of her with tone to make sure I had looked properly. I kept getting her feet wrong as her left foot was at a slant and a bit twisted. I felt it was hard to grasp the angle it was at, I went up a bit closed to her and looked again and did a sketch of just her feet, I  think I have got then to look ok now.

  I like the out come and I think my model will be pleased when I show her the final painting. I had already pre done a background wash. For this I used a natural brown colour and instead of just washing it across the page I swirled my paint brush around in spirals to create a swirl effect in the paint on my paper. I think this gave a great technique and I am excited to start painting on top of it. My friend has quite silvery pale skin so I am going to try and capture this in my painting and I also feel this will be a good contrast to my background I have done. 

Painting

      Firstly I have just done a basic outline, using a watered down skin colour.  I have made sure I have got her at the correct pose on my painting to what I am seeing. Now I have the out line. I have chosen 3 colours yellow red and white to mix them to create a skin colour and also by adding a little black I am hope to try and get the silver skin tone that she has. I have decided to paint the dark areas first, which are on the right side of her body, away from the light. Whilst painting the shaded areas I really got looking at her body to see the shapes of those dark areas too.
       Next I added a bit of white to my colour to get a mid tone and then I applied that to my painting. Its beginning to look really well. looking at her feet I am having the same issue I did when I was sketching her out, but as long as I get the shape and tone right for now, I think they will look ok. I have now gone to start to add the lightest areas and been really careful to make sure I am painting the right areas. I am really enjoying this, I feel I  have been a bit careful but not as much as usual, I want to get the tone correct on her body.  Her top of her back is where I am also finding it quite tricky too, as the light is hitting some of the muscle areas and then where theres a few ditch areas, it goes darker really close to the bright areas. Finally once that dried, I added in the hair and the scalf. I realised that in the sketches, I saw a part of her face, but when I started this painting I couldn see her face. Both ways look fine.

     I am really happy about my final painting for this and I feel like I have made a step forward with my figure painting and drawings. I have got the proportions correct and I really like the tone. There are  few areas I would redo such as the top of the back. looking at it now the light areas may be too bright and I should of blended them better when next to a darker colour. Also the feet could of been at a better angle. I really enjoyed looking and painting the tone into the body of my painting. My model was really happy with the painting and she liked it that much she wants to buy it off me once I have finished with it, which I was happy about as I feel I am starting to get my painting correct.