HMoA Figure Drawing 10/28/13 - Honey - Short Poses

Honey 10/28/13 - Short Pose 3, Ink on Paper,  9" x 12".

So after some RL issues, I am trying to get back into the habit of posting here. I have a few weeks of classes as well as some other stuff to post, but my plan is to get the most recent stuff done then slowly add the older entries.

This Monday was drawing a the Honolulu Museum of Art. The model was Honey and I wanted to try and use only my Tombow Pens for the class and see what I could come up with. This post will cover the short poses and the gestures.

I am a little unhappy with my short poses this week. I almost put one of the gestures as my lead picture for this post, but didn't want to break the great flow of the gesture; I will talk about that later in this post.

Above is the 10-minute pose. I know there are some anatomical problems with the way I rendered the head. However there is a great mood to the drawing.  I also love the spontaneity of this drawing.

I used an old pad of sketch paper for this drawing and I think that was a mistake. The paper didn't take water very well and absorbed too much of the pen ink. My normal process is to do the drawing then correct and add some values with a water pen. This paper  made that process a challenge. I was left with lines I couldn't correct and really weak washes in places. I did manage to adapt a little to this difficulty, but the short poses suffered the most from this problem.

Below are the Gesture drawings, I am really proud of them. Honey took a series of really nice-to-draw gestures. She slinked her body and made a really natural use of the model platform.

Honey 10/28/13 - Gesture 1, Ink on Paper,  9"x12".

The last time Honey modeled she did a number of poses against the wall and I noted I really needed to define her shadow a bit more. So this was something I took to heart this time. I made a real effort to define her shadow in the time frame and the result is a very nice opening drawing.

In this pose you can see the problems with using these pens on this paper. On other papers, the lines of the shadow would have been lost completely in the wash, creating an amorphous nuanced shape. With this paper, the lines are still really visible. So I added  the diagonal lines to them and the rest of the shadow to make it uniformed.

Honey 10/28/13 - Gesture 2, Ink on Paper,  9"x12".

 Here is another with Honey against the wall. The shadow is a little less dynamic in this one.

Honey 10/28/13 - Gesture 3, Ink on Paper,  9"x12".

I really like this gesture. Honey was leaning over on a counter. There is a nice play between the shadow and the figure.

Honey 10/28/13 - Gesture 4, Ink on Paper,  9"x12".

 She then took to the floor for the last set of gestures.

Honey 10/28/13 - Gesture 5, Ink on Paper,  9"x12".

 I normally am not a fan of this view of reclining poses. I did manage to get a lot defined in two minutes.

Honey 10/28/13 - Gesture 6, Ink on Paper,  9"x12".

Honey 10/28/13 - Gesture 7, Ink on Paper,  9"x12".

Honey 10/28/13 - Gesture 8, Ink on Paper,  9"x12".

As I mentioned above, I am a little unhappy with the short poses. 

Honey 10/28/13 - Short Pose 1, Ink on Paper,  9"x12".

Honey 10/28/13 - Short Pose 2, Ink on Paper,  9"x12".

"Understanding is a two-way street."

 ~ Eleanor Roosevelt