HMoA Figure Drawing 12/02/13 - Kat - Short Poses

Kat - 12/02/13 - Gesture 03, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"defined egdes and implied edges

Kat was the model at the Honolulu Museum of Art this Monday and as always she was a blast to draw.

This particular session I was on fire.  I had so many sketches that I liked it was difficult to pick on for the top of the page. Above is the third gesture of the night and I am very happy with how this drawing came out.  I am probably going to use it for a larger painting.

There are so many good things about this page. I like the two purples and how they play off one another in this pose. The pose is dynamic and the shadow behind her adds a lot to the drawing. The figure is pretty well rendered and I like the play between defined edges and implied edges: the left leg is created by a quick outline while the right leg is created by a wash and the gentle outline of the shadow form.

The two purples are actually because the deep purple pen was running low on ink last week and I looked for a replacement color and found a mauve colored pen at Fisher's this weekend.  I am happy with the new color as well as the play between the two colors.   

Below at the rest of the gestures of the night.

Kat - 12/02/13 - Gesture 02, Ink on Paper, 9"x 12"

Kat - 12/02/13 - Gesture 04, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

I really like this gesture too. I think I'm drawn to the two shades of purple. It's creating a neat effect with the cool and warm purple.

Kat - 12/02/13 - Gesture 05, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

Kat - 12/02/13 - Gesture 06, Ink on Paper, 9"x 12"

Kat - 12/02/13 - Gesture 07, Ink on Paper, 9"x 12"

This is another nice gesture. These are becoming a blast to do.

Kat - 12/02/13 - Short 01, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

This is the first of the five-minute poses.

The play between the two complimentary colors is amazing in this one. The purple shadow and yellow skin tones are playing off each other very nicely in this sketch.

Kat - 12/02/13 - Short 02, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

This is the second of the five-minute poses. I think I spent a disproportionate amount of time on the face and it kind of shows in this drawing. The figure has a nice movement to it. The contra-position of the figure is capture nicely.

Kat - 12/02/13 - Short 03, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

This was the 10-minute pose for the night. It is an interesting drawing. It has an interesting in-flux look to it. It has pockets of definition that make for a dynamic sketch.

It was a close to being my favorite of the night but I do really like the top gesture.  

"A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament." 

~ Oscar Wilde

HMoA Figure Drawing 11/18/13 - Victoria - Long Poses

Victoria 11/18/13 - Pose 1, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

So I was trying something a little different with these poses. In the above drawing, I started in a light pink ink. This means I could obfuscate the planning lines a little easier. So the drawing looks much cleaner then I am used to.

I am not sure if I like it or not

I do like well-defined shapes and all, but I really like to see the brushstrokes/lines in drawings. It is a physical marker of the draftsmen. Or that's why I like it in my drawings.

However, the really clean shapes have something really appealing to them. There is a static finished nature that I like as well. I will have to try this kind of drawing a few more times to see what it think of it.

Victoria 11/18/13 - Pose 2, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

This is another drawing I am on the fence with. My initial effort was to use the blue in the shadows of the drawing. I am a little unhappy with the blue. It looks a little odd. However I made a really cool discovery with the blue and the pink in the shadow under her arm. It creates such a nice purple and makes for a really great reflected light.

Victoria 11/18/13 - Pose 3, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

This was the last pose of the night.  It was a foreshortened reclining pose; I am really happy with how this came out. Again I did the initial drawing in a light pink so a lot of the planning lines are not visible.

I think the red shadows add a lot to the figure.

I should rework this page a little bit more. I think I could make something really neat out of it.

"I do not judge, I only chronicle." 

~ John Singer Sargent

HMoA Figure Drawing 11/18/13 - Victoria - Short Poses

Victoria 11/18/13 - Gesture 04, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

Monday was another session of drawing at the Honolulu Academy Art and I am so happy with the gesture drawings from the night. This purple and orange thing is working out so well. I am honing my process for them and am really happy with how they are coming out.

I was really trying to capture the light and dark forms as quickly as I could. I think I  was really successful in a number of these gestures.

Above is my favorite of the night. I got the dynamic nature of the pose and managed to get some of the details into the gesture. I am really having fun with these gesture drawings.

Victoria 11/18/13 - Gesture 01, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

Of the 10 drawings, I consider this my least successful. In this sketch I tried something different. I did the initial sketch in orange instead of the purple. So when I added the purple the washes got muddied. I find the orange in the darks more distracting then the purple in the orange shapes. 

Victoria 11/18/13 - Gesture 02, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

 This is another great gesture. I like how I rendered the weight shift on her feet.

Victoria 11/18/13 - Gesture 03, Ink on Paper,  9"x12"

The shadow really adds a lot to this pose.

Victoria 11/18/13 - Gesture 05, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

Victoria 11/18/13 - Gesture 06, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

Victoria 11/18/13 - Gesture 07, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

Victoria 11/18/13 - Gesture 08, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

Victoria 11/18/13 - Gesture 09, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

Vicoria 11/18/13 - Gesture 10, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

This is such a dynamic pose. I am really happy with how it came out.

Below are the two short poses. 

Victoria 11/18/13 - Short 01, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

Above is the first 5 minute pose. It is a good quick sketch. I did manage to get a lot of information down. 

Victoria 11/18/13 - Short 02, Ink on Paper,  9"x 12"

This was the 10 minute pose I do like the mood of this drawing. The pink and the purple together create a really nice feeling. Victoria was wearing an interesting knotted necklace that was a lot of fun to draw; I had more fun with it in the longer drawings.

"There is no must in art because art is free."

~ Wassily Kandinsky

HMoA Figure Drawing 11/04/13 - Shilo - Long Poses

Shilo - 11/04/13 - Page 2, Mixed Media on toned Paper, 18"x24"

I decided to go back to working with the oil pastel this week. I am drawing on top of older drawings that I am not all that happy with. I am working on a pretty heavy duty paper so it's able to take the repeated abuse I inflict upon it. I used two pages that night.

Above is a magenta page that I used for the second and third pages. There is a lot happening in this page.

Shilo - 11/4/13 - Gesture 6, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

I initially did not like this pose, although a couple days later I added the black lines and it made a lot of difference to the figure. Simple changes can do so much to the over all drawing.

Both of these pages I think will need more work.

“You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem.

 It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear thorough the search.” 

~ Rick Riordan

HMoA Figure Drawing 11/4/13 - Shilo - Short Poses

Shilo - 11/4/13 - Gesture 6, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

Another Monday at the Honololu Museum of Art. The model was named Shilo and this was the first time I had drawn her. She was very muscular and able to hold some really difficult poses. 

I was trying something different with the gesture drawing in this session. I started in purple to get the basic forms, then added a water wash to make some ink forms. Afterwards, I added orange to create the highlights. I love the effect is created in these gesture and will have to try it again.

Above is my favorite of the short drawings. It is a two-minute gesture drawing and I managed to capture so much of the form in the two minute time limit.

There are some things in this drawing I can improve upon. I dislike how I planned the page and am annoyed I lost her lower legs because of poor layout. This may sound obvious, but I also realize the orange, as bright as it may be, is still darker then the white of the page. I originally thought the brightest highlights should be the orange applied with the thick brush tip. But now I thing the mid-level lights should be the bold brush and the brighter highlights should be the marker tip.

Shilo - 11/4/13 - Gesture 2, Ink on Paper, 9"x 12"

I love this gesture. There is such a wonderful flow to the form and I love how I used the pens in this one.

Below are the other gesture drawings from this session.

Shilo - 11/4/13 - Gesture 1, Ink on Paper, 9"x 12"

Shilo - 11/4/13 - Gesture 3, Ink on Paper, 9"x 12"

Shilo - 11/4/13 - Gesture 4, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

Shilo - 11/4/13 - Gesture 5, Ink on Paper, 9"x 12"

A headstand. Shilo did a headstand for one of the two-minute poses. It's very impressive because she kept remarkably still and because she was able to hold it for two minutes. Very impressive.

Shilo - 11/4/13 - Short, Ink on Paper, 9"x 12"

Above is the 10-minute pose from that night. I did not like the five-minute poses so i didn't bother to include them.  I did manage to get a lot done on this pose. I struggled with how to render Shilo's very light blonde hair. It gave me pause and I don't think I managed to pull it off here.

I am really happy with the gesture drawings from the night and will have to try the purple/orange pen combination again. 

"Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect."

 ~ Samuel Johnson

HMoA Figure Drawing 10/28/13 - Honey

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

This past Monday, Honey modeled at the Honolulu Academy of Art. I worked a little different then my normal Oil Pastel on toned paper standard. I worked in my Tombow Pens and I am pretty happy with the results.

Above is my favorite of the night. It was a really dramatic pose and I managed to get a lot of emotion into the drawing. There is a great mood to this drawing.  This was the final pose of the night.

I am a little unhappy with the leg but there are so many good things about this, that I really don't think it matters in the grand scheme of things.

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

Above was the first pose of the night. There is a great simplicity to this drawing. This was done on the old paper and I was a little unhappy with how the variations of the ink were handling. So after this pose I switched to a better quality paper.

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

This was the second pose of the night. It is ok. It is not as a dramatic as the other poses. I do like how the legs are rendered in this drawing.

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within." 

~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

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

HMoA Figure Drawing 09-30-13 - Quantae - Short Poses

HMoA Figure Drawing 09/30/13 - Quantae - Short Pose 3, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

Quantae was the model this week at the HMoA. As always he was a blast to draw. These are the short poses for the night; I do like how most of these came out.

Above is my favorite of the night. It is the 10- minute pose and overall has a great feel to it. I am starting to really like what I am able to do with these 10-minute poses. This was done with the Tombow brush pens.

The red in the shadows adds a lot to the drawing. It was a really dramatic pose and I managed to add some emotion in the way I rendered it. The cross hatches in the sketch add a nice rhythm to the left side of the page.

I think I could have made the shadows a little darker, maybe even used some black. I also think I could add a shadow to the right side of the page.

HMoA Figure Drawing 09/30/13 - Quantae - Short Pose 1, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

This was the first of the 5-minute poses.  I do like how much of the pose I was able to capture in five minutes. It overall is not one of my favorites.

HMoA Figure Drawing 09/30/13 - Quantae - Short Pose 2, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

This sketch needs a little work. I could add more to the background, and maybe play with the colors a bit more.

Below are the gestures for the night:

HMoA Figure Drawing 09/30/13 - Quantae - Gesture 01, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

HMoA Figure Drawing 09/30/13 - Quantae - Gesture 02, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

HMoA Figure Drawing 09/30/13 - Quantae - Gesture 03, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

HMoA Figure Drawing 09/30/13 - Quantae - Gesture 04, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

HMoA Figure Drawing 09/30/13 - Quantae - Gesture 05, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

I really like this gesture. I managed to get a lot of information about the pose in a very short amount of time.  These gestures really come to life with the addition of the wash.

HMoA Figure Drawing 09/30/13 - Quantae - Gesture 06, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

HMoA Figure Drawing 09/30/13 - Quantae - Gesture 07, Ink on Paper, 9"x12"

"What makes men of genius, or rather, what they make, is not new ideas, it is that idea - possessing them - that what has been said has still not been said enough."

~ Eugene Delacroix