Life Drawing

So recently on the course we started doing some life drawing sessions and focusing on drawing techniques to built our skill on drawing as a whole.

Despite the simplicity of "drawing what you see" it proves much harder than it first seems. It became apparent to me that theres much more than one aspect to think about when drawing a figure as a whole (thats if you manage to fit the whole figure on a page unlike me). I have an extremely bad habit of focusing on sections of a body; whilst sometimes turning out quite well, I still struggle to practice my proportions of the body when theres half a leg and a foot missing somewhere a meter off the page..

I think that everybody uses different ways to get proportions of a page such as measuring the head and counting how many heads down the body their is (the easiest for myself), to drawing joints of a figure and "joining the dots" as it were.

Speaking as a novice of such a profound exercise I've grown such an interest in the subject and the determination to actually defeat my habit of cutting half a head and foot off, that I've started reading into tips and techniques to help accomplish this.

So imagine your model is framed. Looking at the lines and the composition around a figure can sometimes make it easier to make your model not look like its floating in the middle of a piece of paper. Planning your composition is crucial to not deforming your models body to look like a melting snowman on the page..

Quick one line drawings can help to make you think about your line economy. They stop you over thinking and doesn't give you time for rubbing out and repeatedly drawing lines in the "wrong" places.

Sometimes drawing lines of the key angles of the figure helps when you want to add details. e.g the lines and shapes in the shoulders and waist and connecting the two with faint straight lines before adding curves isn't a crime.

I think as you progress with the drawing you will inevitably find your own "style" and way of working. Remember to always work with the picture as a whole and don't be afraid to make mistakes. The amount of times I've made "happy mistakes" and actually found a pathway to develop my work is countless.

Now I'm definitely not a drawing pro, if ever, but the concept behind life drawing and relating it to drawing still life and moving objects is undoubtably valuable and something I want to continue practicing. (Avoiding the cheesy phrase "practice makes perfect)...

-Pictures to follow-