Life Drawing- Second Session

This session was oriented mainly around image depth, and the 'grounding' or 'weight' of the figure. The idea's to 'feel' the movement of the body... so essentially how it's being held and how certain limbs are weighing down upon, on top or against one another. 

This will essentially bring the figure to life, establishing a more 3D depiction of the body, as opposed to a flat, 2D one.

Our life drawing tutor suggested using heavier lines, darker tones and alternative mediums to indicate where the weight's being held.

I also feel, now, it might be a good way of suggesting where tension is being stretched across the body, and next time I want to experiment further with the best ways to show these muscles at work.

Women, (generally, though not always), tend to be trickier at showing this, since the curves and body fat makes it harder to see the way in which the skeleton is bending. If one part of the body is protruding one way, it can goes against the whole bend/line of the body's pose as a whole.

It was challenging, but also fun trying to think and experiment with the different ways of showing this. 

20 minute warm-up.

Here I started off with the 'overall' shape of the figure, to try and work with what I'd learnt from last life drawing session. I had drawn other students in the background and foreground to try and establish depth in the image. I do, however, feel I need to work on distance, and work on blurring/drawing more faintly the further away something is (as opposed to having the whole picture in focus).

In terms of 'weight', I can see now that what needs changing is the straightness of the line, where the leg, ankle and foot meets the ground. She almost seems like she's tilting across some of these drawings, which kind of contradicts the whole 'grounding' sensation we get when observing the human body. If her head is weighing down upon her body, and her torso her legs, that weight looks like it's not being rested upon her feet, against the ground, but rather slipping to the side. 

Sometimes, if you're not careful, the figure will look almost like she's floating across the background, as opposed to being a physical, anchored being.

Four 5 minute poses

This time I tried harder to shade in and indicate the torso's role in weight- so the hunch/slope of the shoulders, or the protruding fat resting upon the thighs. I also tried to draw 'action lines' and arrows specifying where I want the body to look like it's bending towards, at certain points. Though I feel this most definitely needs more work, I'm pleased with the 'volume' of the body (where certain parts of the model's body juts out further than others), and keeping the improvements in mind.
The image, far right, was meant to be the shadows of the model, though I unfortunately ended up reverting back to my linear line with the legs.

2 minute poses

Timing was tricky with this one. Before, I worked with the lighter lines first, and then a second, and third darker gradient (H, 3B, 5B). However I kept being caught out by the changes, and while some I managed starting on the shading, others I couldn't establish the pose quick enough. This is something to work on next time.

One section of the body

Finally, we finished with a sitting pose, where the model was slouched against the seat, her arms curved round and resting on her thighs. Face and neck hunched forward (though I hadn't shown this quite well).
I was concentrating more on the weight of the skeleton frame, muscle and fat. How the neck was drawn down into the concave of her chest,and the way the breasts and abdomen curve outwards again, forward onto the legs.