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...