Drawings: OCA Part 4: Proportions II - The Longer Pose

 The Longer Pose

Oil Pastel on Green Paper

 

Thank you to my mother for once again offering (involuntarily) to be my model for this exercise. I ended up doing two drawings instead of the intended one as I wanted to experiment further with a different medium after finishing the pencil and wash piece and produced the oil pastel piece above as well. I employed the time tested artists method of holding a pencil at arm’s length to judge the right measurements and learned a valuable lesson – always ensure you’re using the same pencil for this.

The Longer Pose

Pencil and Wash

 

Learning Log

 

Have you managed to make a complete statement in this time? What were your main problems?

In the majority of my drawings there is a compete statement but I have to admit not necessarily a totally accurate one.

I find that the main problem that I am encountering is with the details of the face and hands. Working with larger mediums like pastels of thick charcoal this is not so noticeable; there is less room for details so fewer marks. However I really struggle when using finer utensils such as pencil or ink pen to record the details of faces and hands smoothly and succinctly. I know his is all down to a matter of practicing it so practice it I shall do.

How well have you captured the characteristics of the pose?

When I stayed focused and concentrated on each mark that I made the character of the pose definitely came through much stronger and produced a more satisfying drawing. However sometimes I would get bogged down in certain areas and loose some of that individual personality.

Do the proportions look right? If not, how will you try to improve this?

Surprisingly I think the proportions of my figures are generally quite good, at times the faces and hands are a bit off as mentioned before, so I shall practice to hopefully improve in the future. Otherwise I don’t think they are at all that bad I found that using objects in the background to relate to really helped to get the scale right.

Preparatory Sketch

Biro and Marker Pen