Assignment Four

I have been looking over the work I have built up in Part 4 and looking to them as preliminary drawings. I have also been looking at all of the different mediums I have been using to figure out what work best for each of the required figure studies. I have really enjoyed experimenting with different mediums and combining them within Part Four, especially oil pastels.

Figure study using line

For the first Figure Study, which looks at a seated model using line. The directions suggested the model be seated in a chair, I played around with my own idea of my final seated composition and thought to try and create a narrative within my drawing. I sat my model at the side of a bed and had him look off to the side, it suggests a story, that something is happening out of view. It reminds me a lot of the work by Edward Hopper, how his work often reflects a narrative playing out sometimes out of view of the painting but the painting but this narrative is shown through the person being painted and their reaction. For my medium I used a fine liner pen and a black paint marker, to create bold lines that make up the drawing. I really liked how this drawing came out and is probably my favourite of the three, even though I expected it to be my least favourite.
I used a fine liner to sketch out the details of the human form before going in with the paint marker. I find that this can make the environment feel disorientating and helps emphasise the human form of my model rather than take away. I really like the effect of the contrast between the mediums and how the simplified background came out. It’s almost like taking a real person and throwing them into a cartoon environment. The lines arent very straight as I wanted a perplexing, odd environment but it might have worked better had I used perfectly straight lines and a ruler. I also think I have drawn the hairline a bit too high and it throws the likeness off a bit.
Overall I am very happy with how this piece came out especially since I love working with tone over line. I think my use of line and crosshatching did add a nice amount of tone as the lighting wasn’t that dramatic.

Figure study using tone

I love how the skin came out in this piece however the facial features are definitely off which I’m quite sad about. While the head has a lot of dimension the facial features just look really flat, so I have to work on building that up. Parts of the background feel quite flat as well, so I feel I struggle with adding dimension when it comes to working in colour, something I should push myself to do more to build up that skill. I do love the warm colour palette I worked with in this drawing, they all work well together and aren’t contrasting. I did shine a light on him from a slight angle in order to cast light across his chest for an interesting range of tone, of course with window light as well. I really enjoyed blending the soft pastels together to form tone around the body, I think my choice in colours work extremely well for the models skin tone, but I definitely need to work on the details and dimension of my figures.

Portrait using line and tone

For this piece I went for a smaller scale drawing to create a sense of intimacy within the drawing. I chose a pose that was similar to a previous quick sketch I have done. I looked through to decide on what kind of pose I wanted to work with and felt this one created a closeness and intimacy. It created a warm feeling. I decided to keep my medium choice simple this time and opted for a mechanical pencil. This allowed me to create a lot of tone through cross hatching and building up layers of pencil work. It was hard to play around with the lighting too much as it was a bright day, but I do like the softer tone than anything too harsh.

I think I would maybe like to go back and experiment further and create more assignment pieces for assignment four. I thought I would be happy with my ideas, but I feel that the last two studies could have been better and more creative. I wanted to look at using mirrors and reflections, and also more dramatic lighting. It has been hard to arrange for sittings with Covid, so I may want to revisit this with my model again when I have the chance. I am just not happy at all with my last two drawings. I want something more dynamic but still natural. I want my drawings to feel dimensional and that the forms within them have weight within the surroundings which I feel I have failed at here. So I think revisiting these assignments when it is safe to do so with my model would be ideal.