Life Drawing- Blocking out the figure (Week 1)

Our first lesson of life drawing was going to be different short ten/fifteen minute poses, three for the woman and two poses for the man. Our goal within this class was to draw the basics of the models and to just relax into the drawings and see what we could document on our own, without much lesson direction from Sarah. I thought I was rather decent within my last life drawing class but the standard within university is much higher and I was instructed different ways on how I could improve my drawings of the model and how to correctly view their body. Focusing on details such as the curve of their back, the way their arms rested on their body, how they are portioned and details overall to create a realistic approach.

Within a few minutes into the lesson with help of the environment and music I was relaxed with drawing the models and was enjoying focusing how I could use life drawing within my own characters and how the proportions of the models legs, arms, neck and facial characteristics were ideal for helping me animate my characters correctly to a lifelike human.

These are my first attempts at the standing, ten/fifteen drawings of the female model and I was able to draw different views such as a straight side profile of the model, with her leg standing forward and her weight leaning on a wooden stick. I think my drawing with the model and stick was my more successful drawings out of the three and I was able to get a rough estimate of the correct body proportions. I was able to get the movement of her body with the curve of her back and how her left leg stood forward and how both her arms rested upon the stick, holding up her body. The second drawing I did was the model again in a side profile, but this time twisting the other side of her body to face me, and resting the weight of her body with her hand on her waist. I noticed I’m a quite slow drawer when it comes down to it but that I may be able to quicken up my studies if i do a rough line of the body first, fix the proportions and then add onto the details later. This drawing was not too bad in completion and I believe I was able to draw how her body is moving in my direction and the twist and curves of how a natural body would looked in that stance. My last drawing was probably the most difficult as this time the models back was facing me, however she had twisted her arm around to her back and rested it on the small of her back. This was a difficult one as firstly when drawing the movement of the models head, to neck to back/shoulder. Sarah had noticed my mistake of squeezing all her proportions together and gave me advice of trying to focus more on the head to shoulder ratio so that I could elongate the neck, this constructive criticism was helpful and allowed me to step back and view my drawing correctly. Another drawing issue which I encountered was to elongate the scale of the woman’s arm and hand which was facing me, within the correct alignment and scale to the movement of her back. At first I was drawing the arm further out than needed and this was not accurate alignment to the bodies smooth movement.

My second model was a male and for this we were drawing the model laying down and for two ten/fifteen minute poses. This pose was a really difficult one as trying to get the proportions accurate and in my line of view was difficult to draw accurate. I began with the foot that was closest to me on the right and was tasked with trying to show the different dimensions as the right foot was to appear larger and then span back to a smaller scale to the furthest point which was the top left arm. It was difficult to not draw the model small and doll like and keep in line the proportions of each arm and leg and keep them accurate scale and length, as one inaccurate proportion could distort the rest of the body. I still would find this pose difficult to draw but maybe begin with drawing the models torso instead and see if drawing the main, connecting base would allow the joining components to become easier to draw an accurate to scale.

This pose for the laying down part of the class was a lot easier to draw as the model is laying down horizontally and in a straight, elongated pose. I was able to quickly sketch in the body portions within the help of outlying the table which he was laying down on first. The arms, legs and torso all scaled together quite good and I was even insured this by Sarah the tutor.

One of the critics I had gotten was that scale of the body was pretty good but that the head was too small for the body which I had drawn. The head was the first part of the drawing which I began with and I had found myself sometimes struggling to continue within the scale which I began a drawing. This could be that I change my mind throughout or that I forget to look up to the head and keep the representation of scale the same throughout, however for a first try I was proud of what I had created.