Skip to main content

Notes from Tuesday, October 13th



Drawing #6

-Need good quality largish photo of a face facing front- preferably black and white

1.   10 min. Review homework

a.   Collage- 

c.   New portrait- Choose a photo of a face you like.

2.   Face proportions- 15 min.

a. Proportion is how the parts of the face relate to each other. It’s the correct size and placement of the eyes, mouth and nose. If you mess up the shape of the head and the location of the features, you will not capture a likeness.

1)   As a rule, the face has a more or less oval shape. Draw an oval.

2)   Start with guide lines:

] Eye line: Most eyes are at about the center of the face. Measure and draw an eye-line.

] Nose line: Make a light mark higher than halfway between the eyeline and chin line.

] Mouth: Measure the distance between the nose and eye lines and place the mouth line the same distance above the chin.

3)   Facial features: With the construction lines as references, start blocking in the facial features.

] Most eyes are about one eye-width apart with another eye-width on each side. How close is the edge of the eye to the edge of the face? (Common problem: eyes too small.) Mark where your eyes belong on the eye-line.

] Mark the nose’s outer boundary. Measure down from the corners of the eyes. 

] Lips: This line isn’t straight- what does the curve look like? How wide are lips? 

] Ears: The tops begin at about eye level.


3.   Charcoal sketch in the manner of Matisse:

a.   Matisse said that he didn’t paint a subject literally, but relayed the emotion it evoked for him; i.e. expressive vs realistic.

b.   Draw your face again rapidly, using charcoal. Try to get this drawing to fill the paper, and to make it as carelessly as you can. It’s easy to lose your nerve at this stage, but if the work is too tight now, there will be little hope for it later. “Exactitude,” said Matisse, “is not truth.”

c.   Before you even get a chance to be critical of your first charcoal sketch, wipe it off with a rag or a piece of kitchen towel and start again. You can’t force the marks you need for this type of work, they have to arrive in their own time – even if they take all day. Try to use fewer and fewer strokes- Matise would work and re-worked in this manner, with progressively fewer and fewer strokes.

d.   After sketching and rubbing the figure out several times, your last drawing should be a distillation of all of the previous ones. 

e.   You can continue on this paper or transfer to another using graphite paper.


4. Homework: Work on portraits

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paint Application and Mark-Making

We've   been talking about brushwork and palette knives, and I want to talk a little about paint application and mark-making. Paint can be applied with so many different tools. We all started out with finger painting, and brushes seem to be an extension of our fingers, but you can put paint onto a ground with a palette knife, old credit card, sponge, roller, etc. And besides the tools you use, you have options with the techniques. I took the following list of paint application techniques from a  Craftsy  Post: 1. Dry brushing: This is where you scrub layers of colors on using small amounts of paint. 2. Washing: This is when you apply a thin layer of diluted paint over the colors already applied. The thin veil of color allows the colors underneath to still shine through. 3. Dabbing: For adding texture. Apply thick paint with a stiff bristle brush or a sponge, with a pouncing motion or with quick dabs. Dabbing can be done in multiple layers to build depth. 4. Detailing: Thi...
Post a Comment
Read more

January insights

Our  assignments last week led us on a rich dialogue! We looked at paintings that inspired you in the New Year.  I was impressed with your choices, and inspired in turn.  After our discussion I set some homework for you: Tami:  1. Work on brush handling. Check out the step by step painting web site for some exercises to try. (She also has a buying guide if you ant to get any new brushes.) 2. Your goal is to finish some of your paintings, so please choose the one you want to work on and be prepared to work on it! Becky:   1. Explore Red.  One of your choices for inspiration was this one, below. Your assignment is to buy some new tubes of red and paint splotches of many different mixtures of red, taking some notes,  and make a list or a chart of colors you like best so you can begin to incorporate them into your work. 2. Bring a photo of a landscape that means something to you, and be prepared to riff on it in an abstract way. Abstract Landsca...
Post a Comment
Read more

Composition and Principles of Design

Composition is the way you arrange the parts of your picture on the page. Artists work to arrange the parts (lines, shapes, colors, and textures) on the page so that they will grab the viewer’s attention and keep the eye moving all around.  When you begin to work with composition you step away from rendering exactly what you see, and begin to make artistic decisions about what you want to express, and how. The process of composing the picture is called design , a process of selection, simplification, distortion, and rearranging.  Artists use "principles of design" to make decisions about how to arrange the parts of a drawing. Some of these include: Variety:  Using different shapes, lines, colors, and textures to create interest. Harmony: Using similar shapes, lines, colors, and textures to help the design hold together.  Unity:  Organizing the parts of a design so they work together.  Simplicity: Eliminating parts in order to create better unity. Balan...
Post a Comment
Read more