Final work

This is my work for this assignment.

I wanted to draw this subject as someone who is important to me, and in this pose they are doing something important to them - praying.  

In setting up the pose I decided to keep the background simple so as not to detract from the subject.  I added an extra light source coming from the front righthand side.   I had enjoyed the tonal studies in this part of the course and so decided to use conte crayon and charcoal, I am most confident in working with this media and they have a flexibility about them that I like in that you can overlay and manipulate them.

In terms of preparation, I first did a quick colour sketch of the subject in this pose, using my chosen media, in order to demonstrate to myself that I could achieve my end aim.

I then took a photograph of the chosen pose from which I could work out where to place the subject on my paper and prepare an initial light pencil sketch in preparation for the first sitting.  I did this in order to bypass this part of the process at the first sitting.  In the end this idea didn't turn out as useful as I had hoped.! Before the first proper sitting I also worked out a colour palette.

At the first sitting I got the model into the same pose and in part relying on my initial pencil sketch I began to draw using conte crayons, making alterations along the way.  In this first sitting I managed to get quite far with the image.  I arranged one further sitting to work on detail.   At the end of the second sitting I took a photo of the subject so that I could do further detail work from the photo in my own time.   It was only after the second sitting that I realised I had focussed so much on the face and not realised that the hands and arms were wrong and out of proportion.   I think doing the initial pencil sketch from a photo was a mistake. In the first proper sitting, a slight variation in position despite best efforts to replicate the photo, meant that the hands were in a slightly different position in relation to the head and yet I was led by my initial sketch.  I didnt check this until late in the process and it meant I had to go over my initial drawing of the arms and hands with many layers of conte and much spraying of fixative.  Lesson learnt!

With the background, the Modigliani portraits inspired me to make them simple and warm.  I enjoyed working on the face mainly and working on it until I got it as right as possible in my view.  Because of the issue over the upper body I really struggled with the jumper and the arms.  I feel the hands worked out even though they don't have the same subtle finish of the face. I would have liked to have managed to get a similar, rougher, less smooth effect on the face but I was worried about ruining what I had already achieved if I kept working on it.

In conclusion I think my portrait is ok.   However it is far more formal and 'realistic' than I wanted to achieve and I was unable to achieve the free expressive style that I would have liked.  I want to be more expressive in my style and I think that will hopefully come as my confidence with drawing builds.  The only way is to keep practising.

Research Point - Look at the work of a range of artists and their use of line

Source : www.nationalgallery.org.uk

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres  1780 - 1867

Ingres was steeped in the academic tradition. He became the defender of a rigid classicism, seeing himself as a history painter, the highest goal of academic art.  He saw himself as a   conservator of good doctrine, not an inventor.  Portraiture he thought of less importance, but by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognised as his greatest legacy. 

I came across a paper titled Drawings by Ingres by Louise Burroughs, Assistant Currator of Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum.   It focuses on seven pencil drawings by Ingres.  Of these I have picked the following of interest.

Below is Portrait of a Lady Seated, by J. A. D. Ingres. Dated 1814. Ingres appears focus on the face in terms of ‘finishing’ the drawing by adding some tone.  Whereas the rest of the drawing relies solely on line. To me this has the effect of directing my eye to the face alone and almost disregarding the rest of the drawing.  I don’t think this matters – its just what happens when I look at it.

Portrait of Ursin Auguste Vatinelle (1798-i88i), by J. A. D. Ingres. Dated 1820.  This is more freely drawn than the earlier dated sketches in the group.  Again it seems to me most attention is given to the face.  Here he has strong light and dark tones which I think adds more interest.
                                              

To digress a little.  What interested me most from this paper was the struggle the artist had in drawing a study of for the Portrait of Louis Francois Bertin (1766-1841), by J. A. D. Ingres. Drawn in I832.   See below: 

Bertin was the owner and publisher of an influencial publication in whose pages literary and artistic talent was welcomed and encouraged. The subject was himself a great admirer of the arts and a warm friend to artists. Ingres was enthusiastic about the commission.  After deciding on the pose, (not being the final pose above) innumerable sittings, sketches were made and the painting begun. That the sketching process gave the artist trouble is indicated on initial sketches by the much rubbed drawing of the head inserted in the paper where another must have been cut out. Perhaps Ingres was too anxious-perhaps his early dissatisfaction with the sketch unnerved him. In any case, after many days had been spent upon it, Ingres in despair was obliged to confess to Bertin that all their time had been wasted, that the portrait was past reclaim and would have to be commenced anew. Bertin was understanding and they agreed to a breathing spell before trying again.  One day during this breathing space, Ingres observed Bertin seated, leaning slightly forward in his chair with his hands out-spread on his knees, engrossed in conversation. Instantly the artist was filled with confidence and took the first opportunity to whisper to Bertin: "Come pose tomorrow. Your portrait is done." The sittings were resumed, and within the month one of the artist's most successful portraits was completed.

The reason this story interests me is that even for artists such as Ingres that posess such great artistic and technical skills, sometime is it take more than that to inspire a drawing.  I also read that Ingres would usually complete a drawing in four hours, taking one and a half hours in the morning and then two and a half hours in the afternoon.  But that he would also have lunch with the subject of his drawing and this way would manage to see them as they naturally are and not in any particular pose.  A particular mannerism or stance can really capture the person being drawn and its important to take this into account, to know something of your model, when drawing them in order to get a true likeness.

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas  1834 – 1917

Degas specialised in scenes of contemporary life in his time, including dancers, entertainers and women at their toilette. His drawings show that he only sought to master his technique; he experimented with various media including pastel.

I have chosen the following three images by Degas which I like and which demonstrate clearly his drawing style.  I see a connection here with the previous work I mentioned by Giacometti, ie that Degas really focuses on the subject and keeps working and reworking the image to get the feel of the action or moment.    I like the idea of studying and working an image rather than the aim being to produce a final picture.  These types of drawings show more about the process the artist goes through and by being able to see the workings it helps the viewer enter into that process.

In this image I love Degas' use of pastel which is simple and bold.

Assignment five, Option 4 - Drawing figures

Review of past figure drawing work

Looking back over the work from Part four of the course, Drawing figures 

Quick sketches:

-         When drawing the quicker poses I found it natural to look at the image as a whole to see where it was placed in relation to markers in the background, eg a chair or table, and how one part of the body was in relation to another in terms of its position, alignment, size, angle.  I found this helped me to achieve  reasonably accurate proportions.   It was not, however, natural for me to use the medium as a measuring tool, but it became more second nature the more I drew.  

-         Initially I wasn’t always placing the figure correctly on the page, so I took it that drawing from the middle of the page as advised may have helped with that and tried to remember that going forwards.

-         I did enjoy trying to capture the figure in a quick sketch, I felt the limit on time helped me focus and really go for getting the whole figure captured and I was able ignore too much detail.  Sometimes the time pressure helped, but other times it didn’t!  I did like trying to capture the form with just line and no shading and sometimes I would manage to capture the character of the person in a very simple way.

Longer poses

-         Here I focused more on establishing form through light and dark.  Longer poses allowed me to go slower, to break down the figure into shapes before going over it again and establishing more of the individual character through line and tone.  More time also enabled me to slow down and get used to measuring the proportions of the figure as I went along.  I also found it a useful tool to establish the angle of the central axis when drawing figures in different positions, particularly if they were twisting or leaning in some way.

Form/Essential elements

-         Initially I found it hard to do a quick drawing focusing on tone rather than line. I established an approach which involved laying down basic geometric shapes, then adding some contour line to create a more realistic shape and then enhancing the form through shading.

-          I learnt that certain poses which involved a more defined pose eg bent or crossed legs, helped in getting the best sense of the pose, rather than if the model was just lying or sitting.

Gesture, stance and energy

-          To quickly capture a stance or gesture I found it invaluable to first establish the central axis.  From this I could see the true stance much more clearly, even if it was subtle.  I also used the central axis when looking to capture an action or energy, plus I found it helped to really focus on the action going on, when trying to draw it.

Of my work from part four, I feel most strongly about my self portrait for a number of reasons:
I was immediately inspired when I saw the book of etchings by Lucien Freud as to how I wanted my portrait to look.  To find that inspiration really helped me by giving me a confidence in what I was aiming to achieve and it helped to have that focus in my approach to the drawing which then wasn’t just about getting a likeness but was also about achieving a style of drawing.    I was inspired to create a self portrait using rather minimal but key and effective mark-making.  I liked the idea of establishing key proportions and features of the image first and then using my chosen medium to building up the image using sparing marks.  I wanted to achieve a portrait of myself which actually showed a likeness and yet had been achieved very simply.

1.    I also enjoyed the simplistic approach of the sketches I did for the exercise ‘Form and movement in a clothed figure’  using pen and ink and coloured marker pen.  I would like to play more using marker pens and maybe using more colours which I overlay to get interesting effects with tone.

1.      In one of my final pieces where I drew an image focusing on tone, I felt confident using charcoal as a medium and as I feel confident with it and enjoy using it I feel that I should continue to explore its use with the aim of improving my skill in this area.

What I would like to achieve with assignment 5
From the point of picking this option I knew I wanted to do a portrait of some sort.  I spent some time visiting galleries and thinking about the artistic styles I like.  I have always liked the portraits of Modigliani.  This exercise made me think about why I like his style of portrait.  Below are some examples:

 I simply like them.  They are warm, different and distinctive and full of character.  In a way they are a bit like a caricature which emphasises something about the subject.  But I find this a adds life and interest. It is more than a straightforward portrait.  The works portray a type of beauty whoever the subject is.  They seem to me to portray a sense of life and maybe glamour, which was probably very far from how he and his models lived.  I think its like looking at life through slightly rose tinted glasses
!

Another work I recently saw at Tate Modern is the Seated Man 1949 by Alberto Giacometti.  It was written next to this piece that Giacometti's portraits emerged from an intense scrutiny of his subjects, and a process of continually reworking the image in order to record his shifting visual impressions. For want of a better word,  I like the 'messiness' of it!  To me it portrays a sense of freedom in the drawing process, like he focusses on the subject more than anything else and less so the precision of his drawing.  I aspire to gaining the confidence to be so free in my drawing

At the National Portrait Gallery there was an exhibition of portraits by Bob Dylan.  Here below are two examples.  I liked the simplicity.  That he focused on tone and then very free lines.  I liked them and saw depth in them despite their apparent simplicity.  I noticed that mainly he would use a very limited black/grey/white palette but also the tiniest hint of another colour and that touch would bring the image alive.

I was also interested in the following portrait by Frank Auerbach.  I have notice the work of Auerbach in the past and have found it interesting that he takes a long time over the production of works that, because of his style, could be perceived as having been done quickly.  I am interested in the creative process he goes through.

In my work for this assignment I would like to achieve a freedom in expressing the essence of the subject rather than being concerned about achieving a visual likeness.  

Using colour and Tonal Studies

'Using colour' and 'Tonal study' were two separate exercises in the course work.   I have put them together in this section as I feel that some of the work I have done seems to overlap the two exercises.  So below I have a selection of work and accompanying explanations.

In the drawing below I drew the figure feintly with pencil.  I then added blocks of colour with conte crayon and finally using the initial pencil drawing as a guide, I added a strong charcoal line to give form to the figure.

Below is a large but quick study using conte to draw the line straight off and then add colour and some tone to help give form.  

Below is a quick tonal sketch using simple wax crayon.  I hatched and let the white paper be the lightest tone or highlight.

The study below I did on coloured Ingres paper.  I used soft coloured pencils as the medium. The colour of the paper actually became the lighter tone as didn't use any lighter coloured pencils.  For the body I used one colour of pencil and used hatching to achieve degrees of tone.  It was a quick study and I see that I could have added more tonal variation to the image.

For the study below I used Conte, charcoal and chalk. I focussed on the model's back (and I don't think I got the legs very well proportioned) but I like the tonal effect I achieved on the back.  I put a strong defining charcoal line around it - I do note this can sometimes help with a quick sketch to achieve the contour but sometimes it may overpower and detract from the subtlety of the tonal work.

Below is a larger 'back' study.  I think the strong tones depict strength but there is always a danger if trying to be expressive and free with tone using conte that I can put too much colour on and then it can get hard to lighten up areas that get too muddy and dark.

The two studies below are small scale but I managed to capture the subject as she can lie when relaxing.  The first was in charcoal which really lends itself to a tonal study.  For the second I used crayon, just childrens crayons so not artist quality. I used an orange and orangey brown for the skin and grey and white for the clothes.  I built from light to dark with the crayons; they are not so easy to use as they are hard to layer with and you get blobs of crayon after a while if you try and lay it on too much.  I liked doing two similar poses in two different media as it demonstrates how you have to change your approach to achieving a tonal study depending on the media you use.  It also shows how the media used can add a different feel to a drawing.

Line drawing of the whole figure

In these sketches I used the lines of the sofa as a reference point for the figure.  I first used an HB pencil to plot the figure, looking for shapes, referencing each part of the body against another, measuring.  Once I had a light drawing to work on, I used a charcoal pencil to produce a strong line drawing.  Not having to think any more about proportions etc I simple started drawing from the upper body and basically my hand followed my eyes ie as my eyes travelled slowly around the contours of the figure, my hand drew what I saw in terms of form.  The underlying pencil sketch was a general guide but I could make deviations and corrections as I went along as now I was looking at the detail.  During this process my pencil would not often leave the paper except to add small lines of detail within the figure eg short lines to indicate the bones of the ankle, knees etc.  At the end I would add some detail to depict facial features and the fabric of the clothes.

Exercise - Quick Studies

In getting back into figure drawing I consciously reminded myself that I should
- use the background,
- establish a central axis,
- see the subject in terms of basic shapes,
- reference each part of the body against other parts of the body,
- establish correct proportions against the relative size of the head.

In the study below I drew the subject standing, lying and then sitting.  I used one A2 piece of paper and an HB pencil. I  did the sitting pose first and used the background lines of the sofa as a reference.  I looked at the body in terms of different geometrical shapes and  also used my pencil to judge how one part of the body lined up with another, or to establish one angle against another.  I did find it helpful to use the pencil to measure the proportions but do feel that doing this slows me down when I am trying to make a quick sketch - so I also rely on my eye and am more inclined to do a quick check with the pencil here and there.

For the standing pose, rather a simple straightforward pose, it really helped to establish a central axis to see the more subtle positioning of everthing.











I think whatever age of the model, crouching for 10 minutes is nigh on impossible!  I liked this alternative of a figure lying on their side in a curved position.  It inspired me to do more work on the back area of the upper body which I find an interesting part of the body because its is strong and often full of visible bone, muscle and definition.

Below the model’s head was hanging back over the edge of the sofa.  It made me think that poses that stretch and accentuate parts of the body help in the study of underlying anatomy and also are more interesting to draw.

The work of Jenny Saville and Alison Watt

I found it fascinating reading about Jenny Saville and her work.   I was immediately interested when I found she does larger than life figurative works.  I like her bold way of using paint which reminds me of Lucien Freud’s work.  I liked her courage in producing some very graphic works.  She depicts the reality of bodies of all sizes and in all states.  Her early works of large women were inspired by what she saw when studying in America.  Her later works focussing on the subject of plastic surgery are commenting on today’s attitude towards the female form.  I think she is brave in depicting truths regardless of whether they may be seen as unnattractive.

   

I am really pleased to have been directed to Alison Watt, as I recognised her work from years ago after seeing her on the national news when she was artist in residence at the National Gallery and producing the ‘Phantom’ exhibition and creating massive pieces of work solely focussing on fabric.  I found it really interesting and remember having a go at painting a swathe of fabric right after that !