Energy

For this exercise I put on some music and had my model dance around the room. It was very similar to musical statues, I would wait for the movements to become natural and not so forced (As this was a very awkward task for him to do), when I found him creating interesting moves I would stop the music, letting him know to hold the pose for 2 minutes, before starting the music again. This helped to create a natural sense of movement that wasn’t forced, which is what I wanted for my composition of the body in this exercise.

With this first pose, the body is somewhat skewered from the movement and rapid drawing. Tone isn’t very present as the drawing is all about the use of line and how it can depict movement. With the lack of tone I feel the proportions look a bit odd, although they are accurate, the hand and arm look a bit too big for the body, even though that was how they were as the arm was extended. I should have put more thought into not only how my use of line can show movement, but the movement of shadows and tone as his body changes positions. My lines captured the basic shape of his body but also the gesture of him, leaning and moving forward. I didn’t do too well at capturing the beginning of his legs. There is much to improve upon in how I capture movement in this exercise.

This drawing came out even worse than the last. With the models knees bending, his back arching and his arms waving around, it was difficult to create a strong sense of a line of balance or a central axis. This is my least favourite of the three drawings that I did. With such little time to draw the pose and such a complicated stance with a lot going on it was hard to accurately capture. There’s some weight to the pose but the detail, tone and sense of realism isn’t there. The arms don’t quite fit and make the sketch look awkward and wrong.

I think that this is definitely the best drawing I have done out of the set, and I am happiest with this one. The posture and sense of weight is present throughout the body. I think I capture the arms really well and their sense of movement. My use of lines also captures the shape of his back really well. The legs look a little off, and I could have worked on them a bit more to really get a sense of the movement throughout the entirety of his body. You can see his posture twist through his chest and hips, his movement is almost like he is swinging a punch. I love my use of line with the charcoal here, it works well, loose like flowing water. I kept to quick, rapidly drawn lines to help create a sense of movement, short and quick to mimic his dance moves at the time and I think it works quite well.

This exercise has shown me that my use of line can help depict atmosphere and sense of energy and dynamic movement within a drawing. A body is living, breathing and moves a lot. I should show this in my drawings. The bets way to do this is my use of line. Will my choice on medium allow me to do this effectively ( I think oil pastels could potentially work quite well for this), and how should I approach my technique to drawing line. What approach to line will best represent the position, posture and stillness/movement of my model. These are things I need to keep in mind for drawings moving forward.