I just made a big leap in my understanding of figure and portrait drawing so wanted to share previous sketches and paintings before the new work. Above is a photo of the “figure drawing wall” in my studio. I’d covered this wall with black non-fade bulletin board paper to avoid reflected light when I’m at my easel (that stands just to the right of this photo). Then I hung black metal grid panels that I got super cheap on Craigslist and use little magnets to stick the drawings to the grid wall. Now it’s easy to add, move or replace drawings with better ones as my skill improves and I can hang framed paintings from it with grid wall picture hooks.
Below are assorted figure and portrait drawings from past Friday Figure Drawing sessions. Click on any image to go to slide-viewing mode and click through them using the arrows on each side.
Charcoal on paper
Pregnant Mama, conte on paper
Woman with headdress, charcoal on paper
Charcoal on paper
Fallon in Elizabethan Collar, Pencil drawing
Top Knott, charcoal on paper
10 Minutes, charcoal on paper
Hat Guy, Conte on Paper
Conte drawing from first 20 minute session for underpainting
Brian in conte, 1 hour, trying to see the planes of his face
Regular-size sharpener, long points possible (charcoal and one drafting pencil, foreground)
An artist at a portrait workshop I attended was using one of these cute retro-looking red metal pencil sharpeners. I knew she was a student at Sadie Valeri’s Atelier and was surprised that she wasn’t using the traditional sharpening technique that Sadie demonstrates on this video. I told her I failed miserably when I tried that approach and was grateful for her recommendation to order one from the manufacturer, Classroom Friendly Supplies.
I received it quickly, watched their how-to videos and started sharpening my charcoal and graphite pencils. I got some nice, long points (see above photo) but also went too far several times, breaking the lead and having to repeatedly take the device apart to get the little chunk out (they have a video showing how to do that too). Once I figured out that 5 was the maximum number of handle rotations needed to get just the right point (fewer if it wasn’t too dull) I stopped breaking/wasting the lead. Some of the breakage might also have been from the lead being broken inside the wood casing from having dropped the pencils before.
Large diameter pencil sharpener (sharpens large and normal diameter pencils)
When I discovered the opening on the sharpener was too small for my Conté pencils I inquired about Classroom Friendly’s large-hole sharpener and they offered me a complementary one in exchange for posting an honest review on my blog. I accepted and received the black and white model above. This large-hole version can sharpen both large and regular diameter pencils so is really all I would have needed. One difference between the two models is that this one has a stop that prevents extra long leads and associated waste from not stopping soon enough. In the photo above you can see the nicely sharpened Conté pencils.
Sharpeners, front viewSharpeners, side view, with the pencil-holders pulled out to prepare for inserting pencil
One day I will learn to sharpen pencils properly by hand, but until then, these Classroom Friendly Sharpeners are my new good friends, making quick work of sharpening a dozen pencils before going to figure drawing and easily portable to bring to class.
Pirate, Cutlass and Whiskey, Conte pencil on black paper, approx. 20×18 inches
After posing nude for a couple of hours, our wonderful male model dressed in a pirate costume, complete with plastic sword, with sea shanty and pirate songs playing on the stereo. He was such a delight, with a warm smile and a white beard ending in a long, skinny braid. I used four Conté Pencils in white, black, sepia and sanguine on black pastel paper for this long pose (90 minutes).
I’m finding more ease with life drawing lately as I apply the techniques I’ve been taught over the years but that hadn’t “clicked” until now. Finally I’m willing to do a little measuring of lines, shapes and angles instead of “just going for it,” which is fun, but always wonky (not that my drawing isn’t still wonky, even when I do my best to measure—but I’ve also learned that “wonky” is what gives work our own style and I like my wonky.)
Three resources that have helped me learn to draw better:
Sadie Valeri’s excellent student handout that I got when I took a workshop at her studio, which she has generously given me permission to share with you: sadie-valeri_draw_block-in_08-2013-2 (PDF Download).
Sadie Valeri’s free video demonstration of how to do a “Straight Line Block In.” All of her videos are excellent, free or paid. She is one of the most generous and clear teachers that I’ve studied with. She is brilliant at lifting the veil between the subject, your eyes and your brain so that you can see what’s really there and draw it.
Here are the ways I practiced some of these techniques in this drawing:
first determined whether the subject is wider or narrower using a skinny stick (e.g. a bamboo skewer or knitting needle) held at arm’s length to compare both directions so I know whether to place the drawing and the paper in portrait (tall) or landscape (wide) orientation.
marked where I want the top and bottom of the drawing on the paper (to avoid decapitation or leg/foot amputations).
measured the size of the model’s head with the skewer, marking the size on the stick with my thumb and then moving down his body, measuring how many heads fit from his chin to the lowest part of his body (e.g bottom of foot). In this case there were 5 heads.
divided the space between the top and bottom marks on the paper into 5 equal sections, using the sepia pencil so it wouldn’t show much.
noted where on the models body each of those “head” divisions were (e.g. chin bottom, right knee top, left knee top, right foot bottom, left foot) and indicated that on the paper. I also noted how many “heads” wide the subject was at the widest part and marked that.
sketched the head in its section.
held up the skewer along the angles from the top of the head out to the sides to find the shape of the imaginary “envelope” that the pirate’s body would fit into and drew those lines lightly on the paper (see Sadie’s handout).
broke that envelope down into smaller and more exact shapes, looking for negative space shapes and angles to help find the shapes that made up his body parts.
continued doing the same, ending with the feet, which I didn’t quite finish as time ran out.
drew the whiskey bottle (which was actually empty) during model breaks.
The model asked to take a photo of my drawing at the end of class. That was a first…and a great payoff to practicing the tools!
Avocado and Pear, oil on panel, 10×8″ Available. Click image for purchase information.
I took a wonderful Alla Prima Still Life workshop from Sadie Valeri recently and really enjoyed the class. She is such a generous and knowledgeable teacher. I really appreciate the way she is able to verbalize what she’s thinking as she demonstrates and how organized and thorough her teaching style is. I got this one nearly done before the end of the day and finished it up at home from memory.
Lemon Studey, Oil on Canson Vidalon Vellum, 8×8″
We started the day by doing a lemon study on Canson Vidalon Vellum. What a great idea for a painting surface for studies–so much cheaper than using panels or canvases. Taping it to a board with a piece of white or grey paper underneath works great. This was a limited stroke painting, done quickly as a warm up to practice laying in colors in little color chips, side by side.
Zorn Palette color chart in gouache, 10×8 inches in A4 Moleskine
In trying to learn more about gouache I made a few color charts. I’m using mostly M. Graham gouache which I like much better than the Winsor & Newton and Schmincke I used before. The Graham gouache is creamy and brilliant, rewets well and doesn’t smell (like the W&N). I found that using fresh-squeezed gouache is more fun to work with than rewetting dried paint, but frugality keeps me trying to reuse dried. The best solution is to set up a palette for each session, squeezing out tiny blobs, adding more as needed.
Above is an exploration of the Zorn palette in gouache, a limited palette using only Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red, White, and Black. The black paint, when mixed with white, is meant to serve as blue since it is a cool color that can look blue next to warm colors. Next I want to try using it in an actual painting.
M. Graham Gouache paint chart, gouache in A4 Moleskine, 10×4 inches
Above is a chart of my gouache colors straight from the tube and mixed with white and each other. Sadly when I removed the masking tape it pulled off some of the paper from the extra large Moleskine watercolor notebook that is my current journal. I don’t recall previous Moleskine WC notebooks having that problem but I’ve switched to low-tack tape now.
Before ordering any new brushes specifically for gouache I wanted to see how the brushes I already had might work so did the test below. I found a few that I liked and ordered a couple of others. I’ll do another post about my gouache palette and brushes I’ve settled on soon.
I painted Kathleen (from the Julia Kay Portrait Party) side by side with the flower below but decided to post them as separate images. I’m loving gouache but really struggling with the way light colors turn so much darker when it dries. I actually lightened the sketch above in Photoshop so that it wouldn’t look so scary.
Azalea in Gouache, 7×5 x 5.5 inches
I found this flower (I think it’s an azalea) growing along the sidewalk in the neighborhood and picked off a blossom to paint. The flower is too dark because of my lack of experience with gouache, but I had fun painting it. Gouache is so much fun and I’m especially loving M. Graham Gouache. Now to just learn to mix colors about 4 shades lighter than they look! I mastered doing the opposite with watercolor so I’m (almost) sure I can do it with gouache too.
LEFT: Girl with wildly matted hair on pretty deck off pretty kitchen. RIGHT: Old lady dancing for people while workmen powerwashing on a roof spray water that turns to hail. Ink and White Pitt pen in compact Moleskine, 5.5 x 7 inches.
I used to start my mornings by drawing images from my dreams but got out of the habit some years back. I got inspired to start again after seeing Nina Johansson’s project of drawing from imagination daily in a Moleskine daily planner. Her strangely beautiful pages are skillfully drawn scenes from a vivid imagination. I loved her idea of using a dated journal so I bought up a pocket-sized yellow Moleskine planner and started drawing my dreams again every morning.
Russian soldiers marching and big feet. Chinese vase with butterflies and lady bugs.
I was pretty rusty at first, but with each drawing I’m feeling more confident about mostly drawing without references or props, and without worrying about accuracy. I’m using a variety of pens including Pitt Artist Brush Pens and their new PITT Artist Pen – White pen that works really well. I’m throwing out all the other yucky white markers I tried before.
The big screen kiss and lots of goats. Visiting my secret hidden basement room again and bowl of M&Ms.
The paper in the journal is thin so there is a little show-through from previous pages but the Pitt pens are great at not bleeding.
Woke with a migraine: shipwreck and monkey. Eat on Time.
Sometimes if there are no visuals from the previous night’s dreams or I wake with a migraine, I draw what I’m feeling or something else related to life, like the two above, the migraine image on left and the reminder to eat on time (to help prevent stupid migraines).
Guy from Ace Hardware tried to take my dog and phone. Tall ships, bundt cake and a painting in progress.
Odd, the food items that appear in my dreams, mostly stuff I don’t eat.
No dream, just a sketch of a shitty migraine.
From time to time I’ll post my favorite dream sketches here, but if you’d like to see them as I draw them, visit Drawing My Dreams Daily on Tumbler or my Instagram page, which I’m using to keep daily posting simple (no computer, just iPhone shots of the sketch).
Jana Bouc, Artist 