Learning Curve

We added a new element to our figure drawing this week in my class with Kitty Wallis. Watercolor. Three colors: yellow ochre, burnt sienna, and black. The object was to use these three colors to indicate form. The lightest shades for the parts of the figure that are closest to me, and darker as the forms move away from me.

This has nothing to do with the actual lighting on the figure, but everything to do with indicating form.

These three photos show my learning curve with this new idea.

The bottom photo shows my first attempt. Yikes! Ten minutes and all I got on the paper was a yellow ochre blob! A very little amount of weak burnt sienna and then PING, the time was up and model moved.

The middle photo shows a little promise in that I got all three colors on the page. My brains seem to get scrambled with the whole idea of ignoring the actual light pattern across the figure and translating distance into color. Ten minutes was over too fast.

The top photo shows my final attempt with this new idea. The pose was longer, too, about 20 minutes, so I had more time to consider the shapes and how the body related to me in terms of distance. Kitty kept telling me that I had the arms drawn too curvy when the pose was more straight. But, I saw the model's curves and droops and folds more than I saw the straight bones beneath.

I look forward to trying this again next week. There is nothing so challenging as drawing the human form, nor anything as rewarding.