I drew these this afternoon while at the very crowded Corona Del Mar beach, California.
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These were drawn when I sat in on one of Karl’s evening painting classes and so it was quite a long pose. It had been a while since I’d had this much time with one pose, so I had a little fun getting into the superficial details. I’m referring to the one on the left, of course. The one on the right, I drew just in the last few minutes of the same pose and from a different angle. It’s perhaps not as pretty a picture — it doesn’t have those dramatic cast shadows or the weight of the first — but it may just be a more successful study of gestural, three-dimensional, and anatomical form.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted some figure drawings. There are a lot of them, so I’ll post them in increments. Here’s the first batch. I think all of these are from April.
The above drawings were short poses, I’m not sure how long, from Karl Gnass’s class. Karl teaches us to concentrate on three main levels in drawing the figure.
- Gesture (What is the Model doing? What’s the Story? The “Spirit of the Pose.”)
- Conceptual/Volumetric Forms (Spherical, Cylindrical, Conical, etc.)
- Anatomical Forms (Bone, Ligament, Tendon, Muscle.)
There are more levels beyond these three and of course, more that is involved with just these three, but these are the main ones, and the ones we start out with. They are three aspects of drawing the figure that we may examine separately or simultaneously. However, if we separate them and move through our drawing in the order of these three stages, we can begin to pinpoint our weaknesses. The goal in the end, I think, is to have each of these three support the other. You should not have anatomy which does not reinforce the gesture or help tell the story, or anatomy that does not describe volume or three-dimensional form, for example.
I found, in examining these stages, that I wanted to skip over the second stage. I didn’t like conceptualizing the forms of the figure into cones and cylinders, etc.. I felt like I was turning the model into a mannequin and anyway, I knew I could draw well enough to get those nice curves of the anatomy. Why mess around with this kid stuff? Well, what I realized was that although I understood a fair amount of the 3-dimensional forms in front of me, how they took up space, that’s not what I was drawing. Or rather, that is what I was drawing, but that’s not what I was communicating. I relied very heavily on the contour — the outline shape of things — and on duplicating those details, albeit in a stylized fashion, which seemed to be describing the form in front of me. Perhaps ironically, simply drawing what is in front of you is not the best way of describing what is in front of you. Now, to be honest, I did have some capacity to describe the 3D forms of things, but I was pretty lazy about it, really.
So, I am continuing to try and develop my skills of “drawing in the round.” I still think I have a tendancy to fall back on my old ways of seeing the figure and it’s a constant struggle to see in a new way, but more and more when I look at my drawings, I’m seeing little things that I don’t think were there before. That’s exciting. And at the same time, there is a little nagging part of me that seems to mourn the old comfortable way of working. Growing pains.
For a few months now, I’ve been taking figure drawing classes from Karl Gnass, held at the Animation Guild in North Hollywood. Karl tends to throw a lot of ideas at us, which can sometimes make me feel like I am swimming in a turbulent sea when drawing. My sense of stability is ripped apart and there’s nothing but uncertainty as I try to grapple with the many concepts circling my head. However, I am determined to try and grasp at these various concepts, sometimes one or two at a time, even if fleetingly, and to abandon a prior “safer” approach to drawing the figure. At times, the effect can be that I shut down completely and stutter through my drawings and at other times, almost unconciously, some new understanding starts to shine through, even if just a little. It helps to have an inspiring model, too. As you will see in some of the drawings below.
Drawn at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Sunset, near Crescent Heights in West Hollywood, right at the edge of the Sunset Strip. It proved a great spot for sketching, as a lot of people came through just long enough to get down a sketch, many of them trend-laden. Pages are listed here from last-drawn to first and you can see I got a little warmer as I went on.
I had a half-hour to sketch while at the Down Beat Café in Echo Park, and these were the results.
Just some quick doodles with blue and 4B pencil. I did a few loose character sketches and then noticed some slight similarities to living persons. Pete Townshend? Kerry? Bush? Also included: a quick sketch of my drawing hand. Just out of frame are thumbs for the ongoing indie animated feature I am storyboarding.
I spotted this guy at the Farmer’s Market on Sunday and had to sketch him. There was so much more there that I didn’t capture. He was like a living cartoon. Perhaps a relative of Einstein. His face seemed to be frozen into an expression brought about by years and years of newspaper reading. It did seem like a nice routine, though. A relaxing sunny afternoon in the open air, with a newspaper and a glass of wine. Not bad.
I sketched him with mechanical pencil on Sunday and went back over it with a couple brush pens late on Monday, adding the background in from memory.
I figured I’d start off the new Art & Story Blog with a little self portrait, introducing myself and my blog to the world or as I call it, “the blorld.” This was sketched this morning based on memory and also based on the way I felt after staying up all night obsessing over my blog. I look forward to making this a place to channel some creative juices. If you are reaching this post from sometime in the future and have come to the end of the reverse-chronological line, I thank you for taking the time to look at my future-past posts.
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