After attempting a weekend of gesture drawing in various styles and chasing different goals (especially trying to break out of my scribbling style for a short while), I spent the morning’s first hours working on a gesture of a rock musician sitting on a field which ended in an outline sketch:
On the weekend, I started re-reading Michael Mattesi’s “Force. Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators” and was now looking for the applied forces and direction of any future movement of the “model”. Anyhow, once I was satisfied with the above (despite the strange knee), I continued with the next gesture and then I decided to fill it with tone values.
I know the anatomy on this one is also not correct, anyhow … while drawing this, I started thinking in planes, as George Bridgman mentions a lot in “Drawing from Life” and had some wonderful insights.
I’m not sure I would have noticed the points without studying the theory; it was incredible to see how the consistent shading of planes with same or similar orientation in space helped the eye and brain to place the individual parts of the model “correctly”. I decided on a few real highlights and noticed that erasing any lines I had previously made close to them enhanced the strength and believabilty of the entire drawing (I did A LOT of erasing, which is very unusual for me).
So, no lines near highlights. Consistent shading of similarly oriented planes. And, less contrast in the background.
When I got back from work, in the evening, eyes drooping, I decided on shading the first drawing:
I’ve been using 2B here on cheap (80 gr) paper (A4). On the last sketch I chose a 4B to make a few darker lines here and there. Well, there are good and bad points, but it’s fun to do more than gestures!
Wordslye 