Collaborative Neon Gestures with Model Kathryn

After nearly a year of teaching figure drawing via Zoom, I keep trying to find new ways to inspire and instruct.  This week, inspiration came from Carnegie Mellon University Drawing Professor, Narelle Sissons, whose class I observed as David modeled.  Narelle asked her students to capture the shapes within David's form, and invited each to outline them using the Zoom Annotate function.

I loved the neon result, and decided to put this technique to use in our Osher class.  My students took to this approach like ducks to water!

 After the first few, I tried having Kathryn pose with herself.  She would take the first pose to one side, the students would sketch colorfully, then I would ask Kathryn to move to the second pose.

 By looking at her computer monitor, she could line up her second pose to complement her first.  The students sketched in shapes and found contours, and we collaboratively completed the composition.

After our virtual gesture drawing, we drew a quick gesture drawing in the same style on paper to warm our sketching hands up.

We moved on to the long pose, using a piece of drawing paper with vine charcoal rubbed in to create a toned paper (see video link below for instructions).  

We lifted out the highlights with a kneaded eraser, sketched in shadows with vine charcoal, and finalized our work with compressed charcoal and charcoal pencils.

The lovely bit about using this method is that if you ever want to change anything, the vine charcoal is easy to rub out --or to add back in, if you want to darken an area you erased out.

My finished drawing:

Here's the video describing how to prepare a piece of drawing paper for the subtractive method of drawing:

I recommend you give it a try!

Figure Drawing Upside-Down Gestures and the Face

 

In Friday's Osher class, our model, David, was also our technical support.  He figured out how to flip the camera's image of himself upside down so that we could have upside-down gestures.  

When drawing familiar things like the human form, a part of our brain thinks it "knows" how the final image should look, and tries to "help," leading to a struggle between what we see and what we think.  When we turn the familiar on its head, we free ourselves up to see & draw what's really there.  

Below are gestures that were drawn from an inverted image. I notice that I was more likely to capture the line of action rather than try to divide the body into my usual segments.  Sometimes things got out of proportion, but it all felt fresh and exciting.  And,turning them over at the end felt like receiving a gift -- a delightful surprise!

After gestures, we talked about the proportions of the head and face, and finished up with a long pose focusing on the portrait (first image).

Valentines Update!

Every year, when the snow piles up outside, and the world is monochromatic, I am drawn to brightly colored paint and creating Valentines.  It's part self-care, and part caring for others.  

This year, I combined a masking fluid "pen" and bold Schmincke watercolors.  

• Step 1: Draw a simple design on watercolor paper with a masking fluid pen -- my masking fluid was unpredictable, so I let blobs & thick lines happen.  Sometimes I waited for the masking fluid to dry and then removed big puddles in the wrong places, other times, I incorporated them into the design.  
• Step 2: Let the masking fluid dry.  This takes 20-30 minutes, depending on how thickly you lay it down.
• Step 3: Paint!  The masking fluid allows you to place bold colors right next to each other without any unwanted mixing.
• Step 4: Let paint dry & rub off the masking fluid -- with a gum eraser or your finger. Add any extra touches you like with colored pencils, etc.
• Step 5: Glue artwork to a blank card to create your Valentine. 
• Step 6: Write your message; sign your card; & drop it in the mail.  You just made someone's day!

The beauty of using small pieces of watercolor paper is that you can set up a stack of them, and experiment without the pressure of making "perfect" art.  

I also found a Valentine rose card tutorial video from Ellen Crimini-Trent on her YouTube channel.  You will be surprised at how easy and relaxing this project is!

I hope you'll take the opportunity to play with your art supplies and create Valentines cards to share with the important people in your life!

Color Wheel Magic!

I'm seeking vibrant, eye-catching color combinations, and more harmonious colors.  In short, I want to learn how to use color magic in my art.

I considered buying a color wheel.  Plenty of inexpensive color wheels are available, and the ones I like best provide an overlay to point out complementary colors, split complements, triads and tetrads. Each of these combinations creates a different effect. And the beauty of using color wheel magic is that once you decide on what type of combination you want to use, you can easily pick the colors you will use instead of scratching your head at each step.

I found a tutorial online that leads you through the process of creating your own color wheel, and decided to go for the color-mixing adventure! https://onlineartlessons.com/tutorial/split-primary-color-wheel/

I downloaded the template, traced it onto illustration board, and got to work mixing paints. And mixing paints.  And mixing, mixing, mixing ...

But as I mixed paints, I started to see relationships.  To dull a bright color down or create a shadow, the tutorial instructed me to mix the opposite color on the wheel, the complement. I also noticed a lot of flesh tones appearing as the color wheel filled out.

I created all of these colors with only 6 primary colors -- a warm and a cool each of blue, red and yellow - plus white. I used my Schmincke Horadam Aquarelle Watercolors.

• Cool Yellow = Lemon Yellow (215)
• Warm Yellow = Cadmium Yellow Light (224)
• Cool Red = Permanent Carmine (353)
• Warm Red = Cadmium Red Light (349)
• Cool Blue = Prussian Blue (492)
• Warm Blue = Ultramarine Finest (494)

I created an overlay out of a plastic page protector, marking the relationships that fascinated me -- complementary colors, split complementary colors, triads and tetrads. I can turn the overlay wheel to find the relationships between some of my favorite colors. 

Complementary colors (bold, solid line) -- or those across the color wheel from each other, like blue & orange  -- contrast brightly and make an artwork "pop."

Analogous colors -- those next to each other, like purple, blue and green -- create a more relaxing, harmonious effect.

Triads (solid line triangle) -- three colors equally spaced apart on the wheel, like red, blue and yellow to create a vibrant effect. It's important to let one of the colors dominate the image or the composition can appear "busy."

Split Complementary Colors (dotted lines) -- are a base color and the two colors on either side of its complement. For instance, blue-green as a base color, and orange and rose pink as split complements.

Tetrads (dashed lines) -- Four colors that are equally distant on the color wheel, also called double complements, that create rich compositions. It's important to allow one color to lead as in triads.

The trio of colors -- purple, green and my orangish flesh tone -- form a split complement.

The journal page on the left demonstrates the vibrant triad of red, blue and yellow. 

I look at the world and see colors and their magical relationships now. Inspired by my color wheel studies, I understand why blooming daffodils feel harmonious (the yellow blooms and green leaves are next to each other on the color wheel).  I understand why favorite color combinations like yellow, green, magenta & purple look so bright and appealing to me -- they're a tetrad.  I've started carrying my color wheel around with me like a slide rule.

I recommend creating your own color wheel. You'll see color in a whole new way!

Osher Figure Drawing with Model Kathryn

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!

Osher Figure Drawing with Model David

In Friday's class, I focused on new ways to approach gesture drawing to help those new to the concept.  We looked at the structure of the body through mass gestures -- starting within the form and drawing with the side of a charcoal stick, pastel, or other soft media rather than just capture the bubble of surface contours.  

We moved on to wrapped-line gestures, sometimes called tornado drawings, which focus on capturing the cross-contours of the body.

We then combined techniques, and started with mass gestures as a foundation that we added a few contour lines and some shading to (4 minute poses).  I used colored chalk for my mass gesture and built up from there with a charcoal stick.

We finished our gesture marathon with a 5-minute study of foreshortening, drawing just the limb that was coming towards us, and incorporating cross-contours to help us see the foreshortening.

By the time we got to the final 25-minute drawing, we were loosened up and ready to tackle David's foreshortened pose.

Many thanks to David for his hard work and beautiful poses!

Self-Care: Create a Personal Mandala

A new favorite art book of mine, The Zen of Creative Painting, has inspired me to be more experimental in my artwork.  According to author Jeanne Carbonetti, "All art mirrors its creator."

Jeanne steps you through three exercises --creating a mandala, a still life or landscape, and a figurative artwork -- and helps you to understand how your art expresses what's within you.  I find the process meditative, expressive and encouraging.  

By looking over my artwork with that mindset, I feel celebrated, and can see core parts of myself that I overlook yet should feel proud of.  Why not embrace what makes you unique?

Jeanne describes a mandala as an abstract artwork that can take any form.  I created my own mandala, drawing what came intuitively with a Micron pen and colored pencils.  

What does my mandala unveil to me? A large heart full of symbols of life (spirals), light (star), and love (hearts) represents my love of life and people & my desire to live with loving kindness towards others.  

The vibrant colors represent my strong will & expressiveness (blue), passion (pink & red) & creativity (orange). The predominance of yellow represents "shine time" to me -- the energy I receive from being with other people.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to be among people much due to voluntary quarantining, but seeing what a core part of me that is feels like a celebration of myself.

The light and dark moons represent my yin-yang love of spending time actively with people as a teacher followed by time in the quiet solitude of nature or my studio.  The whole composition is full of living creatures, the earth (multi-colored triangle), & water droplets (blue dots) representing my love of nature and earthiness.

I recommend Jeanne's book and the process of exploring & celebrating your unique self through her creative discovery activities!  Make your own mandala and discover your own inner beauty.