Life Drawing

[motodraconis]

dragondazd asked about art tips and classes a while back. I'm no teacher, and I'm still learning, but I have attended a feck of a lot of art classes in my time, most of which, (lets be honest,) were utter shite where my level of art "skill" remained static.
However, every so often you come across tutors with real gems of technique to share, (most of these gem tutors for me were at the dearly loved "London Cartoon Centre.")
Here is one gem that was handed to me, which I will now pass on, to any who may be interested. It's more of a fine art technique than straight cartooning, and about training your perception. Myself and a couple of chums tried it many years ago, we were of differing skill levels, (did I say skill? We were terrible!) But it worked a real treat, all 3 of us visibly improved in the space of a couple of months, it was like something magical.



1) To get the best results from this, you'll need to go to life-drawing classes. The ideal is an artist co-operative where there is no teacher and the fees go direct to paying for a good variety of models - male, female, fat, thin, all skin shades and tones-this last most important. (You don't strictly need a teacher for this, and there's nothing more tedious than drawing the same wizened old white bloke month after month, I've been to such classes, got bored and left halfway through the course.)
Life drawing of course, is constantly held up as the best way to improve. And yes that is true, it is also true that you can go to life-drawing classes for 6 months and still be drawing exactly the same crappy pencil outline nudes as you drew at the start of the course.

2) Why draw nude humans?
Because it's difficult, it's a challenge, but also, the brain can get so hooked up on details, (folds of clothing, fancy hair, or if myth or animal, scales and add-ons etc,) with the result that the basic form of the figure is lost. With a nude, there is nothing for the brain to distract itself with. (Apart from the obvious!) You are forced to focus on form, this technique concentrates on form and colour, not details.

3)What you'll need.
A cheap set of chalky or oily pastels. (Personally, I'd pick the oily pastels, for no other reason than that they're cunty bastards to work with, with chalky pastels, there's always the temptation to become a become a finger blending whore.) Cheap Mid tone coloured paper at least A2 size, bigger if possible.

4) Why cheap?
You can splash out if you like, but this is practice, not for the benefit of tutors. (And yes, I have had tutors who would mark you up on how much money you'd spent, high marks for expensive paper, that sort of thing - bastards!) Besides which, expensive stuff intimidates, in the back of you're mind you'll always be thinking, (feck! this is posh expensive shit, I'd better not screw up and waste it.) Heck, brown wrapping paper (turned rough side up) will do.

5) Why mid-tone coloured?
Because you will be focusing on highlights and low lights, colours and shadows and stuff, mid tone shades will encourage you to pick out the light (and dark) forms. Pure black or white paper is too harsh. (Again, it intimidates.)

6) Why so big?
Cos your working with blunt ended pastels. Trying to work on a teeny-weeny picture with teeny-weeny details using a big fat club of a pastel will drive you insane!


OK, so you've got your stuff, you've got some nudey with rude bits exposed posing for you, (possibly even pointing at you.) Whats this fecking so amazing technique then?

Step 1: Mentally or even physically remove the pure black and pure white pastel. It's too easy, (too lazy,) to reach for these two. Denying them will force you to hunt out colour.
Step 2: Yes, drawing beautifully proportioned humans is hard, so we're not going to worry about that. Yes, capturing perfect skin tones is hard, so we're not going to worry about that either.

So, it's a white guy, you may be tempted to reach for the pastey-pink pastel, so, it's a black girl, and you're again tempted to reach for the brown pastel. Resist!
Instead, look hard at the "form" in front of you, can you see colours? Colours that you might not associate with "skin?" (Like blue, green, orange, red, purple, no colour barred.) Can you see even a hint of these colours? (Ok, can you just imagine the merest hint of these colours!)
If you see the merest hint of (say) green, reach for the green pastel, it's a cheap box of pastels, there is no exact match, but who cares? Slap it down!
You might want to start by focusing on where the light hits the skin (yellow perhaps) then move on to (purple?) shadows, then the "middle bits." It's up to you, but be bright, don't be afraid to use extreme colours where ever there is the slightest hint.


Ok, so you've finished, and (fooking Hell) it's bright, it may possibly be glow in the dark radioactive.
This is the point where other artists may come up to nosey at your work, there may be an audible intake of breath, there may be comments such as, "It's, it's.....um....very modern!
Sod them, you're not drawing to please them.

Continue with the colour fun, relax, don't worry about trying to "look realistic."

After a few months, weeks, whatever (some time spent in regular practice.) A strange and wonderful thing will start to happen. As your eye gets used to picking out colour, and your hand gets used to applying and blending it. So your drawings will start to blend into realistic and convincing skin tones. (This is where having access to models with a variety of skin tones and colours really helps.) Also, because you've chilled out and focused on colour and shape, (on observing without feeling pressurised,) the proportions of your drawings will improve too.
This skill is now "embedded" to a certain extent, and will improve the quality of other artwork you try, even if it ain't nudey.


Well, it worked like a charm for me and my 2 chums. That technique transformed us, (in just a few months,) from definite "fails" at art A level to decent passes.
Hell, none of us got A grades, (or even B's!) but then you didn't see the stuff we were producing before. (Grin.)

I'd go back and go through the whole process again, if I wasn't so damn lazy.

Comments

there are life classes without teachers?

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

Whoah, that's a brilliant idea ...

Re: there are life classes without teachers?

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

This was by far one of the best "classes" I've ever attended. There was no teacher, the models changed every 2 weeks, (with excellent variety of body types.) As far as I could work out, it was a slightly hush-hush co-operative thing run by the artists themselves. The actual venue was an attic room of the (now demolished) Croydon Indoor Market, you walked past junk stalls, into a secret garret maze of corridors, past the belly dancer class to this secret room. My art teacher at school told us about it (cos we were in desperate shape!) but I had the impression he wasn't massively keen on revealing this gem of a place to his skanky students (all 3 of us.) He'd turn up to sketch too, but he'd leave us alone to get on with it. But then, if you wanted help you could always ask one of the other artists.
It was great, and if I could find similar again I'd be tempted to sign up and do life classes again. (After all these years.)

Re: there are life classes without teachers?

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Oh, the art teacher was the same one who told us about the colour technique. (Though maybe not in so many words.) Having pointed us in the right direction, he left us to get on with it. He was a great teacher (one of the few!) The other (non-art) students used to take the piss out of him because he was a bit eccentric and drove a battered old VW camper van. We 3 remaining art students, (our school frowned on art A level,) were quite protective of him against the piss takers. :-)

[velvetfur.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a great idea! A lot of tutors should work like this but don't, or they do but in not as much detail as this. The only problem with a class like this to be run here in Liverpool is the lack of variety of models. OK so we have lots of different ages and body types, but there's hardly any male models (I hate to be sexist but far too often male 'models' turn out to be exhibitionist pervs which is why more women are taken on than men), and as far as I've seen the only life models in Liverpool are Caucasian/Anglo-Saxon/whatever you call it, i.e no Asian, African, Indian, etc. I think that's a shame for the students, but colleges and Art classes aren't allowed to advertise for models in job centres (due to the high number of pervs who'd apply) so they have to accept whoever offers their services which I think is what makes the choice of model so limited. Bah!

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

I'm starting to think the little co-operative class was the exception to the rule, the variety of models did make a huge difference, (esp if you're working in full colour.) I've dropped out of 3 other life drawing classes simply because I was bored to tears drawing the same model over and over.
Shame that Liverpool could only provide white models, it's not like it's the friggin Orkney Islands, you'd think there'd be more variety. Variety would certainly keep students interested and drop out rates low.