Lessons Learned

On February 5^th I finished my first cast drawing at Florence Academy, after Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. As stated in previous posts, it is a charcoal drawing done on toned paper with white chalk. Here is the finished drawing:

"Ecstasy of Saint Theresa", Charcoal and White Chalk on toned paper

Working with white chalk was intended to be an exercise in organizing values; but, for me personally, this cast has also been an exercise in learning to see the overall light impression. Very often, when working meticulously on the accuracy of each individual shape, I get tunnel-vision and lose sight of the bigger picture. When this happens, every feature individually appears well-drawn and correct, but the overall impression doesn’t tie together. My goal for my next set-up, then, is to think more about the overall light affect from the beginning, to think about value-relationships and understand how to compress the values, and to continue applying descriptive lines more reminiscent of the specific forms.
 

Two days before finishing

 

Sight-Size set up

Coincidentally, I managed to time the completion of my cast with the end of the long-pose figure sessions. I have learned a few lessons from my figure drawing; as well as looking at the general light affect, I learned that I should focus more on keeping in mind structure, not just depending on the visual information before me but having an understanding of the planes that make up the body. Understanding the direction of planes and how they relate to each other will allow me to apply the properly descriptive line to convey the type of form as well as push the sense of space.

Finished 4-week-pose Figure drawing

My primary qualm about this drawing is that is looks cut-out; there isn’t much feeling of depth, of the figure being situated within an environment. The instructor suggested, to get a sense of space in my drawing, to consider which planes would come forward, and which would recede. Going back to line quality mentioned in previous posts, this means also asking what type of plane-change I am trying to describe, the severity of the angle-break, as well as the relative distance of one form to the next. Approaching work in this way was a good exercise in understanding the structure of the subject and how to convey that sense of space. 
Based on what I’ve learned from this drawing, my personal goal for the next figure long-pose is to approach the work thinking about the planes of the structure, and to utilize variety in edges to create a sense of depth. 

Next I will be doing another cast, the head of Michelangelo, and will begin another long-pose in the same medium of charcoal and white chalk.

Italian word of the day: “Finire”, to finish