PAINTING STUDIES - Exercises in Colour, Value, Temperature and Paint Handling


SHOES

STUDY ONE: RED APPLE

STUDY TWO: SOAP AND DUCK EGG

STUDY THREE: RED ONION

STUDY FOUR: MINI PUMPKIN AND ORANGE BERRIES

ROSE AND SILVER DIPPER

Ribbons Still life

COLOUR STUDY

BLOCK IN

END OF WEEK 2 STAGE

Summer Plein Air Sketching - Peak District and Royal Greenwich

Roy - 4 week Pose Charcoal on Grey Toned Canson

Charcoal portrait of Leyneuf on Canson Paper

'Leyneuf' - Charcoal on Canson
Completed over 10 hours

This was my first portrait drawing done in the studio at LARA and I really enjoyed having the luxury of a model shared between two other students. I wasn't able to share in all the sessions as my study at the school is only part time, but I took full advantage of the time I did have. You learn a lot from portraiture and have to make sure that all the rules and principles of setting up your drawing are not thrown away as you hurry to capture the likeness on the page. As with all rep drawing, the block in is really important and so are the truth points that you need to identify early on and keep referring back to. As ever, I seemed to lose sight of all of this at the beginning of the drawing and didn't capture the right gesture or proportions until some way into the drawing. I didn't really ever get it quite right but was happy that I was at least able to capture a degree of likeness. The importance of value relationships is what struck me most about doing this drawing. It seems to me that so much of the likeness comes from seeking out good values. The plane changes can be very subtle and the way the light falls on these planes is so key to describing the form. I loved chasing the angle breaks in the eyes to convey a better sense of personality and emotion. Looking forward to doing many more portraits and receiving advice as to how to improve.

Monochrome Cast Painting - Feature Project

SUMMER TERM AT LARA 2014 - 4 week pose

4 Week Pose - Charcoal and Chalk on Grey Toned Roma Paper

SUMMER TERM AT LARA 2014 - 2 week Pose

Summer Term at LARA -

I can't believe the Summer term has arrived, it doesn't feel like long ago that I was hoovering up the last traces of the Christmas tree scattered all over the living room floor. Seems to be the way life rolls these days, the transition from one season to another seems to blur seamlessly. Although, I have to say that the arrival of Spring did not gone unnoticed this year as it arrived so suddenly and resplendently.

This term will be an exciting one as I am about to embark on a new phase in the atelier training at LARA which is the move to painting. The long and arduous hours of drawing from the model and casts will hopefully pay dividends as I attempt to learn and get to grips with oils. I am going to try and be very disciplined about keeping my blog up to date and record the many stages and new insights that I uncover along the way. I am continuing to explore the figure through charcoal and chalk and am hoping that there will be improvement in my handling as I practise painting in parallel. One should complement the other and effectively enable you to see and build your drawings as masses as you would when painting.

POSE 1 (2 week pose) - 'Ruta'

THE BLOCK-IN

I really liked the contrapposto in this pose and Ruta is such a brilliant model to draw from, she has an exquisite combination of elegance and strength. Her body type and proportions are hard to pin down as it is almost inconceivable that someone can have the long and slender legs that she has been blessed with. Although my block-in gained some idea of the pose and gesture, it was only when the drawing progressed as masses that I noticed my widths were way off. I struggled to capture her likeness in the portrait on the first attempts which meant I didn't really have enough time in the 2 weeks to bring the entire drawing up to the same level of finish. I wasn't particularly bothered by this as you can't fight time and I regard the 2 week poses as a warm up to the longer ones anyway.

FINAL DRAWING

Cast Drawing - Chalk and Charcoal on toned canson paper

Namushka - Charcoal on Roma paper
4 week pose
Drawn in sight size at London Atelier of Representational Art

I thought it would be quite interesting to document the various stages of this drawing and post them up on the blog to serve as a record and help me improve and build on my process for the next drawing. It is very interesting to see how a drawing starts and follow its journey to completion. It always surprises me on looking back at the initial marks and measurements how wildly inaccurate I can be. With every life study I undertake at LARA, I try to remind myself to be more patient at the start. It is all too tempting to get those first marks down and get lost in the initial energy and intensity as you respond to the contours and planes of the form. Time would undoubtedly be better spent just standing and looking, observing the gesture and finding the rhythms before putting charcoal to paper.

The sight size method of drawing that is taught at LARA facilitates the drawing process and provided your initial top and bottom marks ( for head and feet) are accurate will serve as a safety net to check and compare proportional decisions for the rest of the drawing. I am starting to liberate myself from an over reliance on measuring devices, whether it be sight size or comparative and try to trust my instincts and judgements. I have a tendency to over analyse and over complicate many of my drawing decisions which I know detracts from the fluidity and quality of line. I can feel and see the difference in a line that has come from responding to an observation than one that has resulted from scrutiny or an overly academic approach.

I find that with many of the life studies I have made at LARA I know from the beginning whether I am going to enjoy the study or not. I don't think it is related to mood on the first day or energy levels but simply a matter of whether I feel a response to the model and the pose. I really loved the set up for Anushka, the contra-posto, the strength in the locked standing leg and the relaxed dropped shoulder with the slight curvature in the arm. The shadow shape flowed beautifully over the intertwining forms which seem to cross each other like ribbons. I tried to keep this idea in mind when finding the gesture and again when applying background to the overall impression of the figure.

I think it is apparent from my first block in drawing that the proportions were inaccurate. I was keen to get going and capture gestural lines and get a sense of the weight transfer of the standing leg that I failed to note and observe basic elements such as shoulder line placement and the pelvic line to mark the centre of the body. You can see the progression in the drawing and gain a sense of me finding a better sense of structure and searching for a better way to push the gesture. I wasn't so afraid to move things continually during this study, the charcoal makes corrections and line moving much easier than graphite which is far less forgiving. I didn't however want to sacrifice the structure and tried to seek out those key anatomical anchors to help make the form more believable. Although some of the change are subtle the little shifts, or pushes and pulls all contribute to the end result. I have used a red line in the example below to show how I wanted to create that extension and tension in the standing leg to give it that sense of weight and poise which really made the gesture so beautiful in the way she posed. 

 Despite having 4 weeks on this drawing there is never enough time to complete all those little details and tonal transitions. I was pretty happy with the end result and will learn from the mistakes and take forward the lessons I learnt to the next drawing.

Adrian - 2 week charcoal on canson paper