Playing with watercolors.... my first attempts.

I'm having a lot of fun with watercolor right now. I'm working at a place that stresses me out, so I wind down by doodling in watercolors while I'm vegging on the couch with the hubby. I'm not using professional grade watercolors in these, just the palettes left over from the kids' Prang sets every year and Aquastroke brush--perfect for doodling and just messin' around.

Regret...and new drawings...

OK, so I didn't enter anything in the competitive...it came down to the wire and I just decided to wait until next year. Of course, a classmate entered...and had TWO figure drawings accepted. Soooo, if I had entered some myself, I may very well have had one picked.

Anyway, this is one of my latest drawings. I stalled for a bit as my instructor was doing demonstrations for a couple of weeks, but I'm moving again.

To enter...or not to enter...

So, there is an annual student competitive at UALR. Each student can submit 4 pieces to be judged for entry. I've actually had a photo exhibited in one of the shows a couple of years ago... Anyway, I'm trying to decide if I should bite the bullet and try to get something together to submit or not.

I don't feel as capable in drawing or painting as I did in photography, so I'm not sure that I'm up to the challenge this time. Plus, the deadline for entry is 3/19, I think... That would give me about 5 class periods with a model to actually work on something interesting, considering composition, etc, etc... Before now, I was just concerned with making the drawing look like a human, without much thought to what I drew or where I put it on the paper...

UGH. Decisions, decisions....

The power of plumb lines!!

OK, for those of you who aren't art majors, I have to apologize in advance. From time to time I may post little thoughts or epiphanies that occur to me, just so I can read through them later and remind myself.

My current "light bulb" moment is the importance of using plumb lines in drawing. Just drawing a light guiding line on your paper to show the relationship in placement between a model's nose at the top of your page and her knee further down can make the difference between the figure on your paper either leaning slightly forward or toppling off her chair completely :D.

By the same token, although I'm told horizontal lines aren't called plumb lines, these apparently anonymous lines are just as important. In any direction, vertical, horizontal...and probably diagonally (although I haven't tried that yet..hmmmm), these lines are crucial to proper placement of whatever you're trying to reproduce correctly on your paper.

Not only are they important in figure drawing, but I can see they'd be just as important in drawing any complex still life composition.

So, if you guys notice my model falling off her chair, remind me to use plumb lines!! :D

Figure Studies 2-25-09

Today, we did two longer poses. In the first one, I got to see the model's back again... oh joy! In the second, my friend had a talk with the model and asked her to turn around and give us another view to look at! :D

The second pose was drawn on grayish-blue tinted paper, and has highlights added with white pencil.

2-23-09 Figure Study

Another study I was somewhat happy with.... drawing this model from the back is a bit difficult, too many tonal variations ... but I was happy. I'm still not competent enough to try to do facial features, though! :D

2-09 Figure study

One of my first long pose drawings in my first figure drawing class. I was proud that you could tell she was a human and had a bit of a form to her...