Contemporary, portrait, landscape, painting, best, top ten, paintings, oil, artist, artists, gallery, life, figure, graphite, sketch, Snowdonia, drawings, pencil, Art, geometry, composition, Master, Masterpiece, Welsh, Wales.
Contemporary, portrait, landscape, painting, best, top ten, paintings, oil, artist, artists, gallery, life, figure, graphite, sketch, Snowdonia, drawings, pencil, Art, geometry, composition, Master, Masterpiece, Welsh, Wales.
In this post I'm going to cover how I prefer to use oil-pastels. So, (bearing in mind, that my way of doing it, is only one way of doing it) here goes...
N.B., Click on images to zoom.
Seated Male Figure
Oil Pastel on paper, A2 size, 60 minutes.
Here's how I would typically go about doing a life drawing in oil pastels....
Give your paper a middle-toned colour.
As explained in the previous post, if the support is given a mid-coloured ground then all the difficulties of working with pastels on white paper are sorted. In the example here, the drawing of John, I chose to use a blue background so that there was a cool undercoat (in acrylic paint) beneath the warmer flesh tones of the oil pastels.
Sketch in the main shapes of the image.
I prefer to do this with a thin willow charcoal stick. This is simply because charcoal is so easy to put on, and so easy to remove (with a tissue) or to change until I get the overall composition and proportions right. I don't attempt to draw in any detail.
When happy with the charcoal drawing, fix it with oil-pastel fixative.
It may be ok to use normal drawing fixative, (or even hair drying fixative) but I haven't yet tried that. Oil-pastel fixative can be fairly expensive (it's currently around £12 for a 400ML can).
Start working (with the oil-pastels) from dark to light.
Look for the darkest parts of the subject and sketch them in. I don't try to get it too accurate at this stage (in terms of the placement of marks) but I try to get the tone right, and the marks should preferably follow the planes and curves of the surface.
Put in the mid-tones.
Again, I don't try at this early stage for absolute accuracy of placement, I'm just blocking it in - things will change.
The strokes should follow the form..
Any marks made. or modified with a blending tool, should be sensitive to the flow of the surfaces depicted, so when a form is flat the marks should be simple and flat, and when the surface goes around a form, the marks should follow so as to express that form. This 'shaping' can be enhanced with the blending tool.
(detail of chest area)
Let the background colour show through where it helps.
The background colour, (blue in this case) will usually show through the main marks of the drawing, and the cool hue of the blue is especially useful in the shaded areas.
(detail of knee)
Keep the work lively.....
I think that the drawing should be as vigorous as possible, whilst still explaining form and definition. When the drawing is time-limited, then there isn't much choice about this anyway, but even on a more extended work, it's good to keep things lively (after all, this is Life drawing!)
(detail of hand)
Another example.
This is a longer drawing, using a warmer coloured background, of two models. The composition will be more complex when there are two figures, so this could be given longer consideration, - including walking around the 'set-up' to find a good viewpoint before starting.
Two Figures
Oil Pastel on A1 sized paper, Five hours.
In this post I'm going to cover how I prefer to use oil-pastels. So, (bearing in mind, that my way of doing it, is only one way of doing it) here goes...
N.B., Click on images to zoom.
Seated Male Figure
Oil Pastel on paper, A2 size, 60 minutes.
Here's how I would typically go about doing a life drawing in oil pastels....
Give your paper a middle-toned colour.
As explained in the previous post, if the support is given a mid-coloured ground then all the difficulties of working with pastels on white paper are sorted. In the example here, the drawing of John, I chose to use a blue background so that there was a cool undercoat (in acrylic paint) beneath the warmer flesh tones of the oil pastels.
I prefer to do this with a thin willow charcoal stick. This is simply because charcoal is so easy to put on, and so easy to remove (with a tissue) or to change until I get the overall composition and proportions right. I don't attempt to draw in any detail.
When happy with the charcoal drawing, fix it with oil-pastel fixative.
It may be ok to use normal drawing fixative, (or even hair drying fixative) but I haven't yet tried that. Oil-pastel fixative can be fairly expensive (it's currently around £12 for a 400ML can).
Start working (with the oil-pastels) from dark to light.
Look for the darkest parts of the subject and sketch them in. I don't try to get it too accurate at this stage (in terms of the placement of marks) but I try to get the tone right, and the marks should preferably follow the planes and curves of the surface.
Put in the mid-tones.
Again, I don't try at this early stage for absolute accuracy of placement, I'm just blocking it in - things will change.
The strokes should follow the form..
Any marks made. or modified with a blending tool, should be sensitive to the flow of the surfaces depicted, so when a form is flat the marks should be simple and flat, and when the surface goes around a form, the marks should follow so as to express that form. This 'shaping' can be enhanced with the blending tool.
Let the background colour show through where it helps.
The background colour, (blue in this case) will usually show through the main marks of the drawing, and the cool hue of the blue is especially useful in the shaded areas.
(detail of knee)
Keep the work lively.....
I think that the drawing should be as vigorous as possible, whilst still explaining form and definition. When the drawing is time-limited, then there isn't much choice about this anyway, but even on a more extended work, it's good to keep things lively (after all, this is Life drawing!)
(detail of hand)
This is a longer drawing, using a warmer coloured background, of two models. The composition will be more complex when there are two figures, so this could be given longer consideration, - including walking around the 'set-up' to find a good viewpoint before starting.
Two Figures
Oil Pastel on A1 sized paper, Five hours.
Whole or part?
One consideration when figure drawing, is whether or not to do the whole figure or just a part. I'll come back to this in another posting.
quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz “details, details............” quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz
Any idea what this is, and who painted it?
(The answer will be in the next posting.)
And here's the answer from the last posting -
by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1832, The Louvre.
quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz “details, details............” quiz quiz quiz quiz quiz
"I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc, because the painting has a life of its own"
Jackson Pollock
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Music:
I've recently started, just for fun, linking the two preoccupations together, by featuring a few paintings along with one of my songs. If you have a spare minute, you're welcome to take a look.
.......... these are on YouTube, and I'll add more as time goes by.
They will also be found on iTunes, Spotify, CDBaby, etc, - (my intention is to put a new song on monthly from September 2017)
Music:
Beyond painting, my other preoccupation is music - particularly songwriting.
I've recently started, just for fun, linking the two preoccupations together, by featuring a few paintings along with one of my songs. If you have a spare minute, you're welcome to take a look.
.......... these are on YouTube, and I'll add more as time goes by.
They will also be found on iTunes, Spotify, CDBaby, etc, - (my intention is to put a new song on monthly from September 2017)
Also in the last period I've been recording some songs with some friends - have a listen here if you have the time.
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. . . . and now, a Recommended Read . . .
Letters to my grandchildren
Tony Benn
Tony Benn
Simple, clear, honest, consistent, profound.
Published on Arrow
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