I like to present different ways to approach figure drawing in my Osher class, so that we don't fall into the tedium of one known -- yet rutted -- way to draw the human form. Friday, I suggested my students join me in using a brush and ink or paint to capture Kathryn's lively gestures.
How freeing to let the brush's sweep follow Kathryn's contours! She gave us a series of elegant, powerful, dancerly poses, ideal for the medium.
We moved on to tackling the challenges of drawing hands & feet. I presented two different ways to look at capturing these intricate parts -- a gestural approach and a more blocky technique I call "Robot Hands." Below are my brush paintings.
Gestural Hands:
Robot Hands!
I used a combination of both techniques in the feet. I think I got too excited about drawing toes, because they grew larger on my page than in reality!
I was enjoying the freshness of the brush and black paint, so I created two different versions of Kathryn's long pose. The bold strokes of the brush produced high contrast images, with a few light washes for shadows. The brush seemed to have a mind of its own, creating stylized images I didn't expect like this:
I noticed that the new medium inspired my students, too. These gray winter months, anything fresh feels like spring!
No comments:
Post a Comment