I had half an hour at an art group session after finishing something else, and started to sketch a face using a 5B pencil. I had no intention of it being anyone in particular – however, I had recently tried a self-portrait (see first effort in Exercise 2) so a slightly off-centre pose was in my mind, and I concentrated on trying to get features in the correct places (e.g. eyes not too close together, which is a bit of a failing of mine) and bone structure correct (including a decent sized neck). I kept the hairstyle and earrings I had drawn onto the self-portrait, still not intending the drawing to be me, but just because I had drawn them recently so had an idea of how they went (or at least, I wanted to see if I could remember how they went).

I am quite pleased with the result, in that it was fairly well proportioned (apart from the nearer eye being too big), I had avoided most of the traps fallen into previously, I had introduced a feeling of solidity through the use of tone and had produced a drawing which I thought could definitely be “somebody”. The comments of passing art group members however were interesting – a couple looked around at other members facing me round the table to try and work out which one of them I was drawing, and were a bit mystified when it wasn’t any of them – someone said “she knows all her facial proportions” – nobody suggested it looked anything like me or even that it reminded them of anyone else. 

So have I drawn a portrait, or a head?

I think I’ve drawn a head. When I tried a self-portrait, even the one with the cross eyes and chicken neck, I think there was a sense of a person “present”, even if less perfectly conveyed – although I’m not sure why – the slightly anxious look in the eyes, maybe? My imagined ideal has no particular expression. I think, to me, that any portrait I made of a real person, whether it was myself or someone else, would conjure up to me the experience of painting and any relationship (close or transient) with the sitter, and I hope I would put something in it which I had closely observed to convey a fleeting glimpse of that person to the viewer.

Due to our ongoing deluge of late I haven’t been out and about watching people moving much (and in fairness, people haven’t been out moving for me to draw), so I have done quite a bit of sketching from photographs – left is a group of walkers, joggers, rugby players and hurdlers.

I have also been setting myself challenges such as 3 min drawings from the sports section of the newspaper, trying to get proportion in quickly, taking particular note of examples of foreshortening, and making my marks dynamic to indicate movement, as I hope can be seen from this example of footballers in action. 

These drawings are in a little A6 sketchbook which I have made specifically for the purpose of carrying around in my pocket and surreptitiously taking it out to sketch unwitting bystanders – in a coffee shop, for example. Unfortunately, in coffee shops, people really sit and drink coffee and chat so many of my sketches from this sort of situation are of static poses, save for waitresses and baristas.

I have also had a go at sketching from TV programmes – had a go at “The Antiques Roadshow last night (it was on because my husband likes it and I was dozing off) – but actually there’s not a lot of action there either, mainly people standing in thoughtful poses or expounding….I feel the way forward is to rent a DVD of Die Hard or take out a subscription to Sky Sports…….

…but will keep on going with my little book, even if a lot of the time what I am catching is more poses than moving figures – it’s all useful stuff.

I am always people watching, so this was, I thought, an exercise which would come easily to me; however, I find that my people watching is much more about trying to infer (or, if more interesting, invent) peoples’ back stories, rather than observing all the bits of their bodies in relation to each other and other people…so back to the drawing board.

 I started off with jazz club – a monthly event on Monday evenings in Tavistock in a rather dingy and ill-lit basement room, and a rather esoteric assemblage of quixotic characters. My husband (whom, I hasten to add, is completely normal) was giving the talk this time (it falls to a different member each session – apart from me, who could fit my knowledge of jazz comfortably on a postage stamp with room to spare) so I sat at the front with him and thus had leisure to survey the group and surreptitiously sneak a couple of photos, which I joined together at home in my drawing to make a panorama of the room.

 I started off with quick portrait sketches of the characters before trying to fit them into the scene. I made the cardinal error of making the central standing figure too large, and they have all ended up looking rather like one of those odd cartoons you used to get in Punch magazine lampooning a particular set of people. Hmm….

I moved on to sketching West Devon Art Group members standing around and chatting, waiting for a demonstration to begin. I did them as individuals rather than forming a scene – some of them clocked me sketching, others were blissfully oblivious.

Next attempt was members of the Saltash Scottish Country Dancing group – I wanted to catch some action, but wasn’t confident they wouldn’t be inhibited by my sketching (some I knew would be fine, but a few others might be uncomfortable), so again, I took a couple of photos and drew them up afterwards.

The gentlemen did not come out of it too badly, but I struggled a bit with the proportions of the ladies – apparently after all this life drawing I really can’t draw figures with clothes on!! – and found it a bit difficult to place the knees which were hidden by skirts, so that the legs of the ladies look rather stunted.

I was happier in the second drawing that I’d caught a sense of movement through the swing of the clothing, though.

How successful were my attempts to retain an image of the scene to draw later on?

I find at the moment I am a bit “one thing or the other” – I either look really carefully at the people, making a few notes or sketches where possible, or I look at the background scenery and lose the details of how the people fit together in my head. The only time so far that I’ve made a real attempt to fit the people into the scenery was in the jazz club drawing (not terribly clear from this photo as I did the scenery in pencil and the people in pen, but can be seen better in the original – see A3 sketchbook), and for this I relied on my memory and knowledge of the people plus photographs. I think, for me, this is going to be the way forward for a while – I am probably still too slow a sketcher to get down with some accuracy the people and the background without either making them uncomfortable or unrealistically raising their expectations of the end result!

 I find that, when I am working in the life drawing group, the things which I always put in as a block, and leave till last to define, are hands and feet. Hence, I decided it was high time I did a bit of practise with my own hands (a la Kathe Kollwitz – see my notes in A3 sketchbook)

  I also tried some feet at odd angles (from photos – my feet always seem to be wrapped up warm in this atrocious weather – should have done this Part in the summer!). 

Hopefully it is obvious that these are two different sets of feet from different photos….

In the first picture, as a bit of a sideshow, I tried marking in the knuckles and joints of the hand in order to try and get the correct relationships between the fingers; this is something Egon Schiele seems to exaggerate, and I can now see why – it certainly helps, even though it makes the hands look a bit ghostly and skeletal – A3 sketchbook. 

I’ve also had a go at drawing bits of me reflected in a mirror – I was sitting at my easel drawing large and found it quite tricky whilst at the same time looking in a mirror which I had set up just to the right of my easel, facing slightly inwards – I was finding I had to have a good look, then turn and draw, then re-set myself and look at the next part and so on – seemed to produce the best results. It’s all quite loose and free, which I am enjoying.

I feel as if I am writing this particular blog post up “out of time” – I have looked at all the parts of the body in various poses in the life drawing groups, and also in random poses in my sketchbooks (see e.g. elbow and wrist in my A6 handmade sketchbook) , without consciously assembling all the elbows in one place in the knees in another; this sounds as if I am being hugely “know it all – move on”, whereas I know I still have a vast amount of experience still to amass – just need to get on with doing that now.

I began some of the individual feature studies during our Fine Art group Studio day (see separate blog post)…..tutor Caroline made an interesting remark when looking at a page of ears – she said that she was looking at each of the different ears and picturing the face which went with them – I hadn’t thought of it like this before.

So, noses, ears, eyes, mouths…….

They’re all rather weird when you look at them in isolation, so I sometimes put them into context just to get a sense of how one related to another.

 I then used a couple of life drawing poses at different sessions to try assembling all the bits into whole heads. The first was a lady, and she was not quite facing square on, but level enough for all the features to be fairly regular. Overall proportions are not bad, but she has the appearance of a rather poorly matched assemblage of features from an Identikit parade – oh dear. I had been experimenting with styles of eyes drawn in self-portraits by well-known artists (see separate blog post on artists’ self portraits and my A4 sketchbook) and tried some of these out on this poor lady – her left eye was ok but the right just got blobbier the more I tried to alter it as it was much too big. The mouth and the nose are not quite aligned – I find mouths very hard – and her ears did stick out a little with her hair tucked behind, but I think I’ve made the visible ear a bit too dominant. On the plus side, I was pleased with the overall face shape and the bone structure.

 Next up was today’s effort – a gentleman who, because he was up on a stage and I was sitting down drawing, was slightly above me (at least, his head was), which I thought was interesting and has had some unusual effects – for example, I measured the ear position carefully, but it looks too high. The proportion is good I think and the head sits believably on the neck and shoulders. Frustratingly, however, it really doesn’t resemble the chap at all, and I’ve been trying to analyse what’s wrong; definitely the nose is the culprit, I think – I haven’t made it long enough (he did have quite a Roman nose), which has made the whole mouth and chin combo too big by comparison. Again, looking for positives, I am getting better at thinking about the underlying skull structure when placing the eye sockets, which I have hitherto found difficult.

I have been relying somewhat on my local life drawing group for these sorts of exercise, and as I walk there and carry my kit, and only have one effective carrying arm while the broken shoulder fixes, the best I am managing is A3, I’m afraid.

I have done quite a bit of reading around the subject of structure (see sketchbooks for details of some of the books consulted, where I have done exercises to practise various aspects), so I am beginning to feel less boggled when confronted with a whole person to draw. My first offering here is a drawing of a very slender model to whom I have referred in other posts – she had a long body and a prominent bone structure throughout her torso which I did find quite fascinating (also, it was very helpful for the rookie artist); however, in this pose she has curled herself up so that this is less apparent. I have to say I was especially pleased with it as it is the first time I think I have tackled the facial features in some detail and actually managed to achieve a likeness. I also feel I have shown some foreshortening, the foot and legs obviously being closer to me than the head and raised arm. I tried to use the negative shape to get that diamond shape between her head, arm and shoulder, although not sure I have got this bang on.

The next week we had another slender lady, but this time clothed in leggings and strappy top. She was perched on a stool on top of a box with her shoulders slightly hunched up, and trying to get those shoulders right caused me a bit of grief. Tone was also made more difficult by the fact that she was dressed all in black, so that really made me look. I am most pleased with her right arm and the way the hand curls up on the stool, and also her right leg leading down into the ankle – she had quite bony feet and I am happy with the shape. Another picture drawn in Nitram charcoal – I find that so easy to hold and forgiving of my left-handed inaccuracies – but will try a different medium for the third picture.

I should say, re-reading the exercise notes, that they suggest that preliminary sketches are made of the pose – in order to maximise my time on the longer drawings (obviously, in a class, time is limited and not under my direction) I have relied on my study of the model and lighting conditions via the various warm-up sketches – see A3 sketchbook.

Turned up at life drawing today equipped with my new favourite medium of choice – natural dye ink, applied with the dropper. The couple who run the class had decided that today’s long pose was going to be reclining – so I’m afraid for the purposes of this exercise that I’ve got two recliners plus a hybrid standing/sitting. Never mind.

Our lady today was possessed of chunky limbs and lots of curves, which made her interesting to draw. I started drawing with the dropper as a way of making me be freer and less angst-ridden about wrong marks – after all, as with other inks, once it’s there, it’s there, and I just have to live with it – and I am finding I am really enjoying it. Hitherto I have reserved it for quick sketches and line drawings though, so this is the first time I have tried it out on a longer drawing. I experimented today with varying the lines one can make using just a dropper, and can report that the range is not huge, although it is possible to make some thinner, lighter, somewhat spidery marks (quite good for hatching) when the dropper is close to being empty.

I am pleased with the proportion in the full figure, and feel I have established some form by way of hatching and shading, as well as including some background information. Best bits are the dimpled right elbow and the feet, which were quite tricky with a fairly blunt instrument! – but I feel I have caught their shape. The face went wrong fairly early on with an over-enthusiastic ink splodge, and I thought I had exhausted what could be achieved with the dropper without becoming over scribbled and overworked, so I spent the rest of the time on a head-and-upper-torso drawing to try and get a better likeness. In fairness, it doesn’t look quite like her, but it does look like somebody! – which I am calling an achievement.

How effective are my three figure drawings? I am pleased with bits of all of them. I am improving just by keeping on drawing, and am no longer slavishly always putting in my markers for “number of heads” to work out where all the bits of the body go – I am beginning to feel as if I know – although shoulders, elbows, hips and knees have probably taken over as my key markers – I think breaking my shoulder has made me keenly aware of the importance of this joint and its position almost in determining the whole pose – get the shoulders right and it will look like a figure, even though you might have the legs a bit too short or the feet a funny shape. I think the middle of the three full figures is the least lifelike – I was a bit thrown out by being confronted with an extremely slim person dressed in black – hope this won’t mean that in future I can only draw people with their clothes off………