Drawing : Warm-up studies

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'Sketches of figure(s) on red card' 

Black conté crayon on coloured card.

This post is devoted to the quick studies that we usually do (at the Ruthin Life Drawing Group) when we start a drawing session. These drawings are most often done within ten minutes each, and have the obvious aim of warming-up and settling down.

(N.b., don't forget that you can enlarge any image simply by hovering over it and clicking. Select the back arrow to return.)

'Sketches of figure(s) on red card' 

Black conté crayon.

I prefer to arrive and set up half an hour before we start drawing with the model. Firstly so that I can get my materials in place, but also, and most importantly, so that I can spend 10/15 minutes 'doodling' on my first drawing sheet. This doodling is completely random (see it behind these figures above), loose, and fairly gently done. And in fact I then usually vigorously attack these marks with an eraser to make sure that they don't impose themselves on the subsequent figure drawings. The sheet has the appearance of a palimpsest. The purpose of this little exercise is to get my wrists 'going', (in tennis I think this kind of thing is called 'opening the shoulders') and also, as a side-benefit, to get rid of what I call the 'white paper syndrome', (i.e., the rather daunting feeling of starting to work on a piece of pristine paper). I realise this is only a personal way of working and I wouldn't seriously attempt to promote it to anyone else.

'10 minute sketches of male figure' 

Black conté crayon.

And of course, another advantage of quick, timed studies is that the poses can be slightly more adventurous than longer poses, which can be very difficult for the model to hold. 

I remember one young male model at a life drawing session in Rhyl library who had all the appearance of a being very fit and looked like he could stand still all day without a problem, had to sit down for a five minute rest after he had been holding a simple standing pose for half an hour or so. 

It's easy to forget how hard it is just to stay perfectly still. (Remember that one well-known historical form of torture was simply to force a person to stand still!).

'30 second sketches of female figure' 

Graphite stick.

This sheet is an example of a 'traditional', well known exercise in which the model assumes different poses every 30 seconds and the artist has to try to capture the 'gesture' of the each pose. It's a good exercise to help the eye in seeing the whole figure first, in one glance as it were, before getting involved in any distracting detail.

'10 minute sketch of mother and baby drawing' 

Bistre conté crayon.

This drawing of a mother holding her baby had to be executed very rapidly - simply because the baby never stopped moving for a second. The mother tried valiantly to hold the baby and keep him fairly still, but no chance. 

'Rapid sketches of a baby' 

Bistre conté crayon.

These drawings of the baby were done one after the other, allowing possibly a couple of minutes or so for each attempt.

'5 minute sketch of female figure' 

Bistre conté crayon.

I started this drawing with wild scribbles to find the vaguest positioning of the figure on the paper, and then applied a small amount of over-drawing by way of clarification.

'30 second 'gesture' drawings of standing figure.' 

Bistre conté crayon.

These drawings, which attempt a certain boldness and also a suggestion of movement, become almost abstract. (They remind me a little of Boccioni's sculpture 'Unique Forms of Continuity in Space'). 

'30 second - 'gesture' studies.' 

Bistre conté crayon.

. .  . . . . . and here are a few more.

'Line drawing of seated man' 

Black conté crayon.

And finally, a drawing in which only lines are used to explain a solid 3D form.  

The easiest way to make a drawing of a solid object look three-dimensional is to use tonal work (like chiaroscuro). Using only lines is very tricky. It is very difficult partly because there are no easy rules that I know of that work (e.g., the line gets thicker, or thinner, the further away the area being depicted is!), - it just seems to be a matter of sensitivity. 

Sounds a bit weak, I know, but there we are.

 QUIZ                                        “details, details........,”                       QUIZ 

Who painted these flowers, and in which picture?

(The answer will be in the next posting.)

And here's the answer from the last posting -

 'Recollection of Mortontainei'

 Camille Corot.

  quiz  quiz qu                                                                                                                                                                                 iz  q.                 uiz  quiz   

"Drawing is rather like playing chess : your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make" 

David Hockney.

  quiz  quiz qu                                                                                                                                                                                 iz  q.                 uiz  quiz   

Music

By the way, recently I've been using some of my landscapes, figure paintings and life drawings, alongside some music, in a series of YouTube videos based at  

Songs From Wales. 

You're very welcome to take a quick look if you have the time.

These songs can also be found on (and downloaded from) iTunes, Spotify, CDBaby, and many other platforms.

quiz  quiz qu                                                                                                                                                                                 iz  q.                 uiz  quiz   

. .  and now, a Recommended Read . . 

'Empire'

By Niall Ferguson 

Published by Harper

No this author is not the shameless provider of incorrect covid predictions, but the brilliant historian (husband of the (also brilliant) writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali). 

Harry.

Now a National Bestseller! 

A remarkably readable précis of the whole British imperial story - triumphs, deceits, decencies, kindnesses, cruelties and all' Jan Morris  

Once vast swathes of the globe were coloured imperial red and Britannia ruled not just the waves, but the prairies of America, the plains of Asia, the jungles of Africa and the deserts of Arabia. Just how did a small, rainy island in the North Atlantic achieve all this? And why did the empire on which the sun literally never set finally decline and fall? Niall Ferguson's acclaimed Empire brilliantly unfolds the imperial story in all its splendours and its miseries, showing how a gang of buccaneers and gold-diggers planted the seed of the biggest empire in all history - and set the world on the road to modernity.

'The most brilliant British historian of his generation ... Ferguson examines the roles of "pirates, planters, missionaries, mandarins, bankers and bankrupts" in the creation of history's largest empire ... he writes with splendid panache ... and a seemingly effortless, debonair wit' Andrew Roberts  

Review from Amazon. 

<Click HERE for my wikipedia entry>

  quiz  quiz qu                                                                                                                                                                                 iz  q.                 uiz  quiz

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