Block-in and Coffee-Break

After opening school with a week of small drawing studies, I am now ready to begin working on my main projects. As mentioned in the last post, I will have two main projects to complete this trimester: one, a large, fully-rendered figure-drawing; the other, a cast drawing. Both will be done in the medium of charcoal and white chalk on toned paper.

Cast Drawing:

In the beginning stages, drawings look somewhat geometrical and blocky. This stage is appropriately called the “block-in”, because it entails breaking the subject down into its most basic shape and capturing only the major angles, which are connected by straight lines.
Personally, I like to think of the block-in as a carving block, which I will later cut into to sculpt the smaller forms. The goal here is to capture the overall size and general shape of the subject, providing a good foundation for the details that will come in more advances stages.

I’m beginning to wrap my mind around how Florence Academy’s approach to drawing differs from the method I have used it the past; When I approach a drawing, I usually tackle the shapes, then determine the values of light and darkness, then render the forms and edges. Florence Academy’s method is different in that it seems to simultaneously keep all three concepts in mind throughout the development of the drawing, merely keeping everything at a consistent level of simplicity.
For example, the lines in the cast drawing, (just as with the previous figure drawings,) already consider the edge quality – something I have in the past saved for the end. The instructor calls this the “language of the lines”, because the breadth of line provides a visual description of the type of form I am trying portray.

Here's the progress of my Cast this week:

The next step will be adding white chalk and then modeling the forms, continuing to adjust shapes and add details as I go.

Figure Long Pose:

This week was also the beginning of the long pose drawing. To study the pose, the students were encouraged to first do small pencil drawings. This is extremely helpful to do before working on the large drawing, because it helps one become familiar with the pose and know what challenges to look out for.
The greatest challenge is learning to deal with the changes of the model; as the model tries to hold his position, over time he begins to unconsciously shift and alter the pose; the task of the artist is being aware these changes, knowing which areas affect each other and why, and selecting elements of the pose to draw which are consistent with each other. 

One of my pencil drawing studies of the long pose

From my reference point, the greatest trouble is the severity of the model’s lean. Over time, he leans on his standing leg more and more, creating a more inclined angle and changing the slant of his hips; this is turn affects the overlap of the bent leg over the standing led. Sometimes, as in the case of the shoulder and left side of the torso, this means parts of his arm and upper body that were previously obstructed become visible.
By taking the time to do these small pencil drawings, I have pinpointed these trouble-areas and learned to understand how they relate to each other. For the final drawing, I will have to choose the pose I like best, then make sure these elements are consistent with that choice and – the hardest part – look natural.
 

The block-in of my long-pose drawing, and another small pencil drawing beside it

Well, that was a lot of information to absorb in a week, so now I’m relaxing with a nice cappuccino :)

Ciao for now!

Italian word for the day: Construire, “to build, to construct”.

The First Week

This week was the start of school at Florence Academy. If I were to describe the schedule in one word, it would be “rigorous”! The days are long and the workload heavy, but it is wonderful to be able to devote so much time doing what I love best.

The beginning of the day is made up of figure drawing; every morning we spend four hours working on a small pencil drawing based on a different pose each day. Four hours may sound like a lot of time to spend on one drawing, but for a realist artist, it’s actually rather short. A finished, fully-rendered drawing can actually take weeks, and so it can be a challenge to capture the desired amount of visual information within this smaller time-frame.

Here you can see some of the four-hour figure drawings I have done; because they are unfinished, they still look somewhat geometrical, and there is little form, only flat shadow shapes: 

Day One

Day two: the foreshortening of the limbs from the seated pose made it extra tricky!

Day three: I feel like this was a real turning point, even in just that short amount of time. The instructor, whose rough sketch is beside my drawing, pointed out how I was limiting myself to only one breadth of line, thus making my drawing feel too mechanical. She suggested I use various qualities of line to describe how the light was affecting the specific area, (lighter, sharper lines in the light, darker, softer lines in areas in shadow.) The difference between this and my first drawing is especially evident; the result of paying attention to line quality is a much more organic description of the figure, giving it a feeling of more life. 

Day four (there aren't five drawings because the first day I had orientation)

Next week we are to embark on long-pose drawing, a large, finished drawing to be completed over a course of four weeks.

After lunch, I spend the second half of the day working on my cast drawing; Cast Drawing is a drawing of a cast of a sculpture, usually done in charcoal. I selected the mask of Saint Theresa from Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. This is one of my favorite sculptures of all time, right up there with Michelangelo’s Pieta, so I could not resist making a cast drawing of it. Below you can see the original sculpture:

Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, by Bernini

Detail: This is the original sculpture of the face I will be drawing. I love how the highly polished marble allows for very soft, smooth forms, which will be a beautiful challenge to capture in chalk and charcoal.

 Before I begin, however, I am working on a value-study, a small version of the cast which captures only the basic values and shapes:

This tiny drawing represents the simplified values of the light's affect on the cast.

 This is not the final drawing, but a very small study for the larger, finished drawing. The goal of this exercise was not so much to capture an accurate likeness of the cast as it was a study of the varying degrees of light and shadow that will be used in the final drawing.

And there’s my first week at school. Next week I begin working on the major projects, a finished figure drawing and the cast drawing.

That’s all for now, Ciao!

Italian word of the day: Studiare; to study, as the first week has been spent mostly making studies to prepare for the greater projects to come in the following weeks.