Okay, now that we worked on the eye, let's move on to my
favorites of these casts, the mouth from Michelangelo's
sculpture of David.

Okay,
so we're going to start the exact same way that we did with
the eye.
And I have -
this is my personal -
this is one that I would enjoy working on on the most both in
school and then afterwards and then also teaching it
because I think any practice that you can with figuring out
what the forms of the mouth are
is helpful because I personally believe
that the character of a portrait is in the mouth and
the lips. So
that is the
thing that I'm talking about here. So any chance you
get to practice and here I also just don't think anatomy
is as important as just really learning to understand what the
structural components are. Now, the one thing I did
have -
the one thing here that is important to keep in mind is
that the cut, right, the way these parts The the the way these parts
were cut out of the head
is a little bit unusual
mainly because
you can see that they're not in line with the axis of the
mouth.
So I - what I tried to do here is to is to tilt it to such an
extent where the axis of the mouth is as horizontal as can
be while everything else is just everything else. So we'll
have to compare it to that horizontal axis.
Now also keep in mind, it's horizontal in life. Not
necessarily on the page due to the perspective.
But as you can see also, it's not as intricate the not as intricate.
as the forms of the eye and the eyebrow and all that
stuff. It's much clearer, right? There's kind of
a singular protrusion and then small changes on the sides, but
there's not a lot going on, at least compared to the eye. In
reality there's a lot going on and what the one thing that
working on the cast of the mouth
will teach you and
the main thing though
is that on the one hand we're not focusing on the lips
anatomically, but we are focusing on the structures,
right, the structures of something
observed. So an observed object. It just so happens to be a cast
of the lips. But at the same time the mistake I see
repeated so often is the placement of the structures
here without lines. And usually that happens because of the
color of the lips, right? The lips are obviously a darker
color
than the -
than anything that is around them. So see I am going to just
hint at them with a little bit of an outline.
But usually I see, right, it's just
some kind of an outline like this and though
not really like that wrong
we can -
by removing the color, now we have a chance to really
figure out what the form is.
So back to that.
Right. The important part is to find where the
highest point is, which will be along the
center line, which just so happens to be, from my point of
view, a little bit off to the right side. Mainly because of
the particular rotation of this cast in relation to
where I am.
Just keep that in mind, right? It's not only about
what's in front of you. It's also about where you are in
relation to what's in front of you.
And that of course has a
a lot of components that we can
talk about that not so much with just to deal not so much with just
technique but with art as a whole.
Right, it's about the viewer.
It's about putting the viewer in the same area
essentially in which you created that work of art, even
if that work of art is moved. So
once again
don't mean to get too carried away with that. See so I am
I am to some degree outlining
but I'm not forgetting, right, this very important aspect
here. And that is that I still I want to show the cast. The
cast is the assignment, not just the mouth.
Just like we have with the eye.
So this top plane is fundamental.
Keep in mind you'll probably be able to probably move around
the outlines though. By outlines I mean the contours
of the cast.
Kind of as you're correcting them, as you're moving them a
little closer
into a proper and into those sort of proper placement.
So
right, beginning to see how these straight lines are
helping us. See what the major changes are, right, one two,
three, and four down there.
A similar thing might need to happen with the lips, with
the lower lip itself. Right? One, two,
and three.
I've seen of course the classic, you know, you divide
the lower lip into these, into a couple of ovals one and
two on each side on the top lip into one
in the middle and then two on either side of that and
I think it's good. I think that that's good and something to
keep in mind
when we sort of step away from thinking in planes to kind of
inflate the form a little bit. But I do also think if you
don't think in planes enough then everything might be
just a little over inflated, over modeled.
We have some,
you know, some things going on here, which are pretty much
about -
which we'll have to figure out how to do with light
and shadow, right? Because we are getting a little bit of
interference with this other light and that'll be
interesting.
Because and I think it's good, right, because it teaches you to
invent, it teaches you to rely on your
understanding
more than
just your observational skills.
So
here right this is pretty pretty clear to me. You can
just see, right, it's the sort of -
it's like a pyramid. Everything's a pyramid, right?
The highest point is here and then everything kind of moves
up
as much as you can towards that pyramid. You can even look from
above kind of and see what's really happening here, right?
You can see it. You can see the contours of that plane, which
happens to be in pretty heavy perspective. You can
still see the contours of it and your
you're there, right?
It alone, right? So like the fact that it's been cut out and
has a shape of its own, examining it from all angles
might be the way to go to really see and understand what
that form is.
Okay. So let's move on. Let's keep going to be gone.
Let's move down to the forms of the chin, right, and we're going
to go into them when we're talking about the skull
and all of that. Like there's a lot there.
For now though, right, to get used to it, to see it let's
just figure out where these plans are, right, where we
really see these major changes.
Right, that's kind of what's happening there and then this
flattens. The same thing as with the eye. The context and by
context, I mean just the whole cast but also
that's the thing I was talking about earlier right, this idea
that what I was talking about the eye, I am talking about
everything around it as well. That is the eye. And here when I
say, when I'm talking about the mouth
I'm talking about the entirety of the forms that are creating
the mouth.
This alone
is not enough.
Hardly at all.
But okay, I think just kind of laying it in. I think we
like what we have, I like
the information that's here. Just so you know, right? This
is a form right? It's going to curve under and this part of it
is the upper lip and the same thing is happening from the
bottom, which you can see in the corners of the mouth, right,
you can see how
not to get too anatomical but you know, it's sort of the
the muscle that's creating this is much larger, right? It's
just it's all of this and it has a particular direction in
its movement and it's much more tight and pursed even if you
will at the corners and then
it
it moves out in that way.
And we're going to counter that of course when we're thinking
of the form.
So now
with the slightly softer pencil, the one I've been working with
lay things in, let's get the shadows, right? And let's - I
think here it's a little bit clearer where you have cast and
where you have core and because of the interference and because
of the particularity of the planes,
we might get into this problem
of how
light a core shadow is or how dark a cast shadow is but let's
keep in mind that what we need on the page is not entirely
what we see up there. What we need is for the terminator to
read clearly and define the form, the core shadow, and
reflected
and the lights reflecting into it
to be
clear as well we can see that but in order to make
that happen the cast shadow has to be as dark as it needs to be
for that to work. In a lot of cases up here the opposite is
happening. So let's take it sort of shadow by shadow and
make sure this reads correctly. So the key here is really
really really really squint because now
I move that terminator on the upper lip. I'm starting from
here. All right, moving it up the lip here, but make sure to
squint, right, so that you can just take it take it past the
lip. This is very important, right, you don't need to
worry about the outline of the outer upper, line of the lip,
or any of that.
And make sure you that happens with how you use - with how
you apply the shadows.
So and then we can bring it down here. I think this pretty
much
is
kind of roughed in for now, but that's pretty much the core
shadow now.
I'm going to get a little bit of a cast shadow moving from
there and you can see the cash shadow on the lips is absolutely
necessary
to kind of curve and see how it falls on the forms of
the -
forms that it's falling on. And in this case the lower lip,
right? So the curvature, the change of direction on the cast
shadow are going to give you the structure of the lip.
So that's kind of it, right? That's pretty much that one and
then we can continue, you can see the bottom
part
here is in fact - can be in fact outline because it coincides
with the terminator.
I would stop it right there now.
And I would say, though this is a tough one right, underneath
we move it down a little bit. I think it's core shadow.
For the most part I think
I don't know. I don't know. If I cover it
I think we can make that -
I mean in reality probably the top part is cast and then
becomes core underneath. And then
finish the form. So really look into it and see where the
structure here ends, right? You have that kind of curvature
leading inwards
and then of course
the cast shadow is coming from that point and covering that
curvature. You can't really see it that well.
And you allow it to kind of fall and curve the same way as
with the
with that cast shadow, kind of curve and maybe even exaggerate
how it curves onto the forms underneath of the chin and this
area on the side.
Now the one thing not to forget, right, is that this right here
is also a cast shadow, but all of this is in a shadow
that if we simplify right, we have the sort of the basic
overall construct and then we have this protrusion,
our lights from here.
That's our terminator, core shadow, and our
our cast.
But simplified
that's pretty much what this is. And of course afterwards we
carve in and there are
other things to take into account,
right, and
so on but that's basically what's happening, right? This
whole area is protruding out from everything else
and that is something to think about.
I don't want to go too much into what these really are
anatomically
and stuff like that and we'll get to see this in the forms
underneath all of this, which belong to the skull.
But in the meantime
just you know, I'll talk about it. And I'm sure
I'm always a fan of you know, as I say introducing some
things early.
Earlier than - like before it's tight, like like before it's
even possible to comprehend them in full.
And I think that that is kind of the key to
to internalizing this information, right, you get a
little bit - you don't like entirely understand all of it,
but the concepts there that you pick up but then you
realize that you encounter these concepts again, and now
you already are introduced to them so they're not sort of -
so it's like it's building on top of what you know, and
also on top of what you don't know all the way but know
enough of so that there's like we're building this edifice of
your education and your technique in this way.
So
now I'm just gonna
make sure we get these shadows right in.
But according to principles, not according to what's observed.
Right. So that's our
core shadow on the upper lip. There's a tiny little shadow on
here, but we're not going to bother that too much right now
and then we can get start getting the cast shadow. Now in
reality
what I'm seeing is an inversion of the rule,
right, the rule is that the cast shadow should be lighter so - my out should be lighter so my
goodness - the rules of the cast shadow you see in reality the cast out you see in reality the cast
shadow is lighter because of interference on our page to
make it read we have to do the opposite. So we're going to
tone down the cast shadow so that it's a darker value than
the core.
Seems confusing sometimes even to me. it to me.
Now
the one thing that I did - the problem that I'm running
into of course is the terminator just it doesn't read.
So we do need to go back.
I'm going to this right away because I think the terminator
is so important that I can't leave it.
That's kind of the interesting thing here because potentially
we could have just blocked it all in and left it at that and
then get back into the terminator but I think the
terminator
got lost and so being as important as it is, we can't
let it remain lost. So
making sure it reads and automatically by hatching or by
kind of extending it and seeing how soft or hard that edge is,
we're moving into the darker half tones.
Okay. So what's happening here - good.
It doesn't have to be completed, it just has to exist.
Let's move on to
some of these somewhat complicated parts, right? Let's
move on to this and here I want to also extend this shadow,
right, and make sure it's a darker value.
I would like to make sure it's darker value even though in
reality it clearly isn't.
And then - and now you can ask,
you know, so
this is actually kind of an interesting topic, right. So you
can ask well, maybe it's possible to remove this
interference and it is in some ways, but maybe it's
possible to remove this interference for the sake of
education. And I think in some ways that is a valid
point and a lot of schools a lot of ateliers I
know are experts at this, right, everything is blocked in, you
have a cast inside of a box. There's almost no interference. The
way this is usually done is impossible for a class to work
on something. Everyone has to work with in sort of a very
very controlled environment.
Now what is my problem with this though? My problem is that
it teaches you early on
not to invent and I think the sooner you realize that the
the process as a whole is a process of analysis and
invention. The closer you are to kind of understanding its
fundamental principle
I think that maybe one assignment where
that whole aspect of it is organized and it's clear
what the core shadow is and what the cast shadow is,
everything's in a very controlled environment. But the
main issue with this is that often it ends up becoming a
little bit more of a crutch than anything else.
And I think the real answer is because, for example, if I was
doing something a little bit more -
if I was aiming to get a little bit more of a quality of light,
I would actually be very interested in making sure that
there's - like the values of each of the shadows is as I see them
because I think multiple sources of light and
interference of light is actually
how we interact with everyone else, right? We see things
with multiple sources of light and reflections from
everywhere. That's much more interesting.
I think learning principles by
ending up learning to apply them regardless of what you see
is a way to train you to see more accurately as well.
Does that make sense? I think so.
All right. So right just making that distinction right here. Of
course, we're going to go into the
the shadows that like the shadow itself, right? It's
pretty -
but see like there's a logic here right now.
And at times we do kind of, you know,
at times and in places maybe to show a form maybe we do end up
using
just what we're observing.

Okay, so I think the shadows are there. They're not
completed. We're not done with them. But I think
it's time to maybe move into the lights.
Half tones, as I like to call them.
Okay, so
let's break this down though into planes, right? That's the
goal this right here, right?
This area clearly a front plane. Our main front plane has
an inner curvature right? It's called the filtrum. F-I-L-T-R-U-M.
But once again, no anatomy, just let's analyze the form but
that is the front plane. It is important.
So obviously our light hasn't changed. It's still from
the upper right hand corner more or less
and we need to establish that plane on the sort of opposite side of
that light. It's already turning under.
I think as a value that's actually not so bad. It's not
going to be one even value by any means, but you know that's
closer to it. So.
Right. Keep in mind though that you want the full side here,
right? This is the highest point. Everything's turning
that way, this side that way on this side. That means the
lip itself, the upper lip itself is also
in that half tone.
A similar thing will happen on this side plane of the lip
right here.
Okay. Okay. Now all of this is a little bit softer, of course,
so but at the same time lighter, right, so this is
already flat or flattening out at least to some degree.
You can already see what the problem is, right, you can see
that
the shadows are just not as dark as they need need
to be to make this read.
And I'm okay with that for now.
Here it's a little more complicated because now really
begin to try to see what that what the shape of that half tone
is and then immediately convert that in your mind to a plane,
right, because the reason there's a shape to a half tone
is because it is a plane.
So let's keep going. Let's keep going with this.
Also, right that's flat. So it needs to be a darker
value to show how that side, right, the lighter side of the
sort of the bulging form here is lighter. We're going to keep
that as light as the paper at the moment. We'll probably end up
making it a bit darker to show it, to show the highlight that
will end up there eventually, but
I'll do it.
In the meantime, so I did say right this is
concave. So
the lighting situation is inverted.
Fight, so if you have a form that is
convex next to a form that's concave
and the light is consistent on both of them,
the lighting situation is inverted.
But I'm liking what I'm seeing. What's like what I'm saying? What's
interesting here is trying to take any opportunity to not
show the outline the lips, right? I knock that back. It's
there. There's a change of value, but it's not so
intense.
And so kind of minimize it, control it a little bit,
show it with changes in value, don't necessarily
attack it head-on with just a contour,
right, a part of the reason for that is - we can think about this -
the contour should be - you should only have it if you're
going to
as a contour on the contour. And by that, I mean on the outside
of a form,
like
so the outside of the cast, the outside of the head, the outside
of something that's really protruding enough to stand out
as its own element. The lips aren't that and aren't ever. So
be very very hesitant to outline them.
Getting back into that terminator a little bit.
Reinforcing the centerline,
don't ever hesitate to do that if it feels a little
bit lost because of course it gets lost.
What is this? That was an HB. Accidentally I had it in my
hand. It's a little bit harder than I need it for what I'm
doing now. I'll save that for the lightest lights.
I'm going to move this over
to here.
Keep in mind right that this edge at the clearest edge is
going to be a highlight. So we're going to need that. We're
going to need the values around it if sufficiently
dark so that that highlight can read like a highlight.
Okay. Okay. That's it. Now the one line that maybe one can
argue maybe come to some degree an outline though isn't is the
line in between the upper and lower lips.
It is this, right, it is that line which is in fact an
occlusion shadow, right? It can be, it's an area that is sort of
blocking all the light that could potentially get in there
and
creating what is a crease and a crease of course
is always an occlusion shadow.
If it in fact is a shadow.
Okay, so let's just get some of this.
Let's just tone back these shadows just a bit, right, so
that they lead right? Okay that already is helping and isn't
that the kind of the interesting part about it? All
right that you make a mark in one area in order to affect the
other ones. Like here
you're changing the relationships every time, you're
always thinking about the relationships because that's
what a change in one area and one corner might affect every
other one. And will affect every other one
if the change is
important enough.
Now kind of - like getting back into that
terminator.
And now right, some of this internal stuff right, the
actual end of the lip and the side plane that's already I
guess not really the lip but is clearly shadow, right?
This is this very interesting because this is this real
rotation underneath. And you can see that it's a form that
continues
despite the fact that there is an edge to that lip. Okay so
the form continues,
right, something like this, but then the lip itself
is here so the changes in plane here are hardly - they're
not like the ones that were right there. The ones on the
side are kind of just a continuation of that large,
rotating
area, right the one it's like that is
folding in and under
with of course hints of the actual edge of the colored
part
of a lip and there is a little bit of an edge and you can see
it. So we can perceive it in this case because of that edge.
And in some cases and some people it's more obvious and
others not so much. So just be aware of this, right, be aware of
the form of all of this
as opposed to
these outlines.
So I'm just going to -
so this idea
is not great
because I know I sketch this out and it looks as though I'm
explaining all this by means of this and I'm not.
Although useful,
you know, so I can clarify a little bit.
It's useful at times.
Let's keep going.
Alright so underneath here of course, I'm losing a little bit
right? I'm losing a little bit of that structure. Now, of
course the same thing that I was talking about here is the
same thing happening underneath, right, the same thing.
And then the lip itself
is right there. So you can hardly see the edge, you can
when there's color, but you can hardly see the edge without
that.
Like without the color because the curvature is so continuous.
I'm going to keep moving.
I am going to somewhat
make the corner of the mouth
a little bit clearer, right? I'm going - I think it's
important, maybe even bring it up a little bit closer to
what's observed
mainly because the corner of the mouth is that important.
So that's how we do it here, right, you know if we get
back into the shadows
even though we promised ourselves that we'd work on the
light.
That is
the
name of the game here.
Okay, so
just gonna
place a general tone over the lower lip.
Now, of course this side right here is going to be lighter.
It's an upturned plane, especially closer to the
crease.
See you erase, find that sharp edge, find that line, make sure it
works. Now here right is where this becomes useful, you
can see what I'm doing here. I'm making this
into planes. All right, one, two, and then a third and a
fourth, which is the inverse of the other one, right across the
center line, so,
right get a little bit more - if you get those changes a little
bit softer it will become that sort of
balloonish kind of form.
Alrighty, so, where are we here?
Just going to bring this down.
That's half tone and is dangerously close to shadow. So
we'll see where that goes. But what I really want to show is
this, you can see
the upper lip and lower lip tucking into the corner of
the mouth there. And this is just half tone so we're gonna
have to get into that to make it work with half tones.
This is unbelievably hard. I thought
the other one I was using was supposedly softer.
No harder, actually, it was a 2H that's just an HB, but it
doesn't cut, that one almost cuts the paper so be careful,
right, when you use a pencil that's particularly hard it
might cut the paper and damage it so you don't want that to
happen. Oh, there we go. That's great. That's the
sensation. This is the interesting part about this,
right?
There's a tactile quality to all this that is unbelievable.
And it it gives you a hint right? Like I can't really
explain it all the way but like the
the tactile quality of the pencil, right? Like you can
close your eyes and you know, if it's a hard pencil
or soft one and you can kind of imagine the effect that it
gives even.
Not that, you know, you necessarily need to close your
eyes.
In fact, you probably shouldn't because it's not very
easy to do this if your eyes are closed.
Okay.
Okay, not bad. Not bad. Not bad. Clearly the half tones
are beginning to work but they're just catching up -
catching up to our shadows. Now the thing is right, I
mentioned this before, you could just put the shadows in as a
dark dark that you will just remember how just do it. Just remember how
dark to go because it will always be as dark as it needs
to be to make the half tones read light enough.
Now,
but I think that's kind of giving up control a little bit,
right, because I would rather you start out lighter and then
figure out how dark to push things as you sort of move your
way around everything, analyzing it, thinking about it,
learning about it. That's I think more of a way to learn
about what you're looking at
and respond to it, then simply applying
a value, you know, not even a concept but a value. Which is
clearly,
you know, definitely not enough.
Now let's get this side plane
of the chin.
Let's get that side plane of the chin. I like what I'm seeing
here
right now, I like how far we've we've gotten. I actually I
missed the shadow, isn't that interesting? This stuff
is all core shadow
because you can see it based on
the
bottom edge of the
cast itself, right? We're always keeping an eye out
for
the way it's cut because if I cover this right, it's even -
if I covered up there, if I don't have this line, it's
unclear what the form is.
And of course unclear here because I haven't even put the
values in yet. But this alone
already makes it clear that this cannot be as light as
this.
So a lot of the stuff you like, if you analyzed properly you
don't need to look at
that directly. You've analyzed it, you remember what it is, you
just go for it.
All right.
You know
go back and reinforce those outlines, figure out what that's
about.
Here there's a little bit of a drop, right, boom and then up.
Because this is the end of the form of the chin and this is
something else entirely so
making this continuous will not allow you to see that in fact,
there is a change of plane
right there. It's maybe not that big but it's important
enough for us not to ignore it.
So
now the chin too, right, the chin not just the flat plane.
Much like with some of this stuff, right, it all kind of
comes in a little bit and then out so along this center line
think about a convexity or concavity of that particular
area that you're working on.
And there's an interesting - you can kind of approach it. You
can see that there's lots of variation there and you can see
that
a concavity -
you could see that a concavity is followed by a convexity
followed by a concavity followed by another concavity
followed by a convexity followed by a concavity. See? So
there's like a -
there's a lot there right? There's a lot in that variation
is a lot in the way it's going to affect how you model
and it's just interesting. And you realize it was not one
followed by the other. In one case there were multiple
concavities in a row. So that breaks up the monotony of it.
Think of it like -
like the rhythmic structures of a poem.
You know, there are instances
where it's a clear pattern, but then there's
always variations to that pattern.
I will leave it at that. Maybe music is a more
sort of common analogy.
I happen to see a lot of parallels with poetry in some
of these things and so I've been exploring that a bit.
Sort of the structure of poetry
and how it can be sort of transferred to how to compose a
picture,
how to establish
interest,
how to explore
a kind of music but not so much of music but more of language.
That's just the comparison that I have in my head that I've
been
also cultivating for a while and I actually think it's - I
think it's helpful to have one, right, and to probably to have
some sort of -
something you used to practice, something that you still
practice alongside of this, right, that you can establish
parallels with constantly because I think that's the fastest way to
learn.
I mentioned this earlier
based on having an understanding of something,
having a procedure and then building off of that.
And I think that's kind of the same thing I'm talking about
now. You have a procedure and understanding of something. It
might not even be art-related
but you have it and you use it as much as you can until you
realize what things you need to adapt to make it work.
Okay, okay. Okay. I think we're getting there. It's still - it's
quite structural, right? You can see it. It's not very
tonal. And we took the eye towards a place that is a
little bit more like towards a level of completion that is a
little bit more tonal but
we're going to do this here too I think but keep in mind
that's not really the goal here that much.
I want to knock that back and then carve and carve in a
little bit more.
Carve in a little bit more
I get that form get that highlight, too.
I'm going to clean that up, right so, you know, sometimes
that sharp line - oops.
Sometimes that sharp line you get with a line and other times
you just erase around it and it works.
All right, it's nice to get that a darker tone, right, there
also. It's like it pushes it away from that
plane right there.
Okay. Okay, perfect. Perfect. There we go. Nice and flat,
right, don't over exaggerate any of those changes, they're
not that important. Just going to push this back a little bit.
All right, it's time to enhance some of these
things and I mean, we're still at a fairly early point right
now.
We're just getting those large volumes. You can see that we're
kind of attacking them a little more directly now
than we did the eye. Just a little bit more. it just a little bit more.
We're still blocking things in, we're still thinking in terms
of larger plane or mass
and
just making sure this is all here. Not really focused too
much on value. Just you know, if I squint I'm pretty much
satisfied with what's happening in terms of
light or dark.
In terms of the relationship of light
to the shadow. That's what I'm talking about.
Pretty much okay with that.
Not that it's correct. But I think it reads enough for me to
know where to go. I know where the shadow is even though
perhaps it is a tiny bit light.
We might keep it that light, we might not.
Maybe we'll only get a little bit of a darker value in spots,
but we need to, you know, we took our organic form, the
one in front of us, we
sort of simplified it into a more planar construction,
and now we're going to
round it off again to make it a little more organic. That's the
process. The basic idea. Of course is that you need to
figure out what this process is
as you go and you end up not necessarily doing it all step
by step.
A lot of the times you will be able to do it all in one go,
you'll be able to in your mind you'll be able to - and I think
that is the process, right. Now the goal is you're looking at
an organic object. You're putting it on paper as an
organic object. But in your mind, it's a planar object. Now
I might be corrected. But I think the sort of the nice
analogy to music that I
heard from I mean
from people who were
in that
line of work,
it's kind of the equivalent of a you know, if you are playing
a piece with a quick tempo, you have to quick Tempo the you of the
count slowly. But if you're playing a slow piece, then you
have to count quickly. So I think that's kind of the idea
and by that I mean, so if you're looking at something
that is
organic, right, there's all these curves and the
soft curvatures of the planes, you end up -
you need to think
planarly.
And usually the opposite is to seeing
clear delineation of plane you need to think a little more
organically. You need to kind of figure out and look for
where they could be could be, there could be variations and
you can find those softer curvatures within these sharp
planes. So you're always kind of your thinking is against
what you're viewing.
It's not really in line with what you're viewing. You know
what I mean?
In some form. All right.
I like where we are right now.
As always I think it's good to take
some time off, take some time away from looking at it , right?
Let your eye relax a bit and then we'll come
back
and take a look at some of these relationships between the
big light and
the clear area of shadow, making sure that they're distinct
enough and getting into some of that small form modeling
that's so enjoyable.

All right.
Okay, now that we've given our eyes a bit of time to relax we
come back to this and see how we can add that last bit of
completion.
Now I say that of course, I don't mean that
we'll just knock this out in just a second. But what I
do mean by this is that all the major changes in plane, all of
the sort of the large relationships, the placement of
those relationships, even if the relationships themselves
aren't completed to
the degree of precision that we might have wanted to now.
I think that from here on
things go much smoother.
So let's start the same way we did with the eye, from the top.
Right and let's just carve into these areas and these this these areas and these
planes that up to now are kind of sort of open.
Kind of open.
Aw,
broke that tip. That's fine.
Yeah they're kind of open, kind of flat right to just implying of
certain value without
being too specific on the description of the actual
topography of the form.
So this is what we got to do now, right? This is what we got
to move on from here.
Just going to knock this back a little bit, right, that reflected
light on the upper lip, clearly too strong, clearly taken over.
So we just need to bring it back. But at the same time
let's just carefully observe what's going on with the
terminator. This is nice.
Going to use my awesome sharpener.
You can even hear it right here slicing that pencil to shreds
but making it - see the thing is most sharpeners they just
don't have
the ability
to
get to this point, right, to get that amount. That's
my prescribed amount of the pencil point
to the rest of the pencil, the wooden part. So I'm very excited
about this.
I'm glad that it's not mechanical though. I'm sorry.
I'm glad that it is mechanical and not electric.
I'm glad that I still have to apply some effort.
Hmm. Alright here comes that bit of invention, right? We
have to figure out how to use that cast shadow to describe
the curvature.
Right now, right, most of what I'm doing is reinforcing these
curves. But what I wanted to say here, right, is that this is
now - we're coming back to this not great although useful at
times that concept of this rounder form right here,
right? And so I'm just inflating it by softening
that terminator right there.
Softening it and then moving off to the side, right, getting
that whole form rounder.
But now I get to move up and begin to work some of these
half tones, making the
middle part,
inflating that one, making that one rounder.
Hmm. Okay. Let's check it out. Let's check it out. Let's
I've beginning to carve into these things a little bit,
making sure that we're really figuring out what this form is.
See,
this is when it's useful.
I'm going to
make sure that that lip, no pun intended, the upper area there
it's not the lip I'm talking about but there's a lip on top
of this lip that I would like to focus on
just a little bit more.
Still it's not round enough, right, still thinking in straights.
Maybe a little too much.
There's -
I had, right, like I like thinking in straight lines
because they imply the changes of the plane, the planar
changes.
But I also liked thinking
in curves. I had a professor at the Repin Academy who
who said that
one must always think in straights creates.
because only amateurs think in curves and then I had another
professor who said one must always thinking curves because
only amateurs think
in straights. Now I don't know who's right. I think
both of them are wrong, but they're very dogmatic about
this. I think you should use both
because there are -
kind of going back to that concept that I mentioned
recently, right,
that concept that you need to be
thinking against
what you're directly observing.
I need to be thinking.
in terms of the opposite structural element. opposite structural element
So if
you're seeing a lot of curves, lay them in straight lines. If
you're seeing a lot of straight lines, what seem like
straight lines at least, lay them in curves.
Alrighty.
Getting into this small stuff, right? That's what's
taking the time. We started up here, I still haven't left
right? We're still up here now
just putting in that glaze or wash
on that side.
Just making sure that reads properly.
And notice
the shadows do get darker and darker a little bit.
You know, I make them
a bit darker as I work on them, but
at same time, you know,
I don't want to push them to be pitch black. I don't want to be
that dark.
I want to have control of that. I wanted to gradually darken
them as I go.
To like the necessary point and you know a lot of times you
don't need the entire shadow that dark, you just need its
origin that dark. That's the key.
And by origin I mean either cast or core shadow.
And by origin, of course, I of course mean the do I of course mean the
terminator.
All right, so it's just reinforcing these concept now,
there's kind of a little bit of a lip here too, right. Once
again, no pun intended . A lip on the lip and
just that's what's going to help us define the form of a
lip as as we're aware of it, right, as we usually - what we
usually think of the lip is to show little delicate
protrusions on the form there.
This whole side, not much going on, much softer.
It's further away.
We can kind of, you know,
get out of the way a little bit, maybe even kind of lighten
with an eraser just a bit so that it can
recede. Now
down here
is an origin of a shadow, right? We need that pinpointed.
Right, all of this starts there in a way.
And then we'll bring this down.
Because that's the end of the form. Remember take it in ,take
it all the way in, do find that center line again. Don't lose
it.
And make sure that
what is already a new part, a new plane,
is slightly darker because that's already cast shadow.
All right. All right see so basically not much has changed,
really not that much from when we came back
from the brick.
Not much has changed. However
you can see it's just becoming more and more resolved.
And you think, you know, just don't think that a cast is
something that you have to you know,
sort of slave over.
A cast is -
like the working on a cast, even just a part not even a large
cast, but just even in a part can be just as active as
working on a large piece.
A definitely more complex piece. So in a sense get used
to this moving around, stepping back, squinting.
This is much more exciting.
True takes more energy but it also, I personally think
creates
on its own and has more energy right? There's more energy on
the page because of this.
You know it all so it keeps you from
falling asleep. If you're doing this early in the morning, you
know, this is a good a good way to wake up to do a couple of
these exercises.
Nice, okay. Okay. Okay. Excellent. I think I'm gonna
have to hint.
I mean, I'm gonna get this little shadow in but I'm going to
hint at a little bit of a same way as with the eye, right, we're
treating this is a block as a cast. We're not simply,
you know, it's not floating
by any means and if it was floating, say hanging on a wall,
then we have to show where there's the
interaction of the object with the wall. We're always thinking
a little more. architecturally.
All right. Floating casts are
no -
they are no fun.
And you know, that's the weird part, right? I also when in
school I thought this. I was like, why is this important?
Like that's not at all the assignment. We're not thinking
about that. We're not really concerned with
this kind of architectural understanding of things in this
case, right? We're just trying to learn about what the form of
the lips is and that's it.
But in retrospect thinking back on my education,
the fact that the sort of the technique as a whole, the
understanding of the school and by school, I mean the
methodology of the school
and having it
reinforced
in everything we did
always
was what really differentiates it from
other artistic approaches, other technical approaches, other technical approaches of
other academic approaches.
Its that you kind of don't even think about making it float in
the air because you need to establish that like, you
know it's automatic. You're automatically thinking of the
connection of the plane, you're thinking of the plane of the
ground and everything rising up from it. It's
almost sort of yeah, it's not, it's it's not
you know, all these are larger questions of the
of the ideas behind the approach are applied
practically even in the most minute ways.
And now I get to share them with you.
And repeat them over and over again what it is great. I think
this is the wonderful aspect of
online learning, right?
That this becomes more
available.
Now clearly this is sort of a problem. It's sort of okay
because it's not that important but on the other hand, it is a
shadow and it is conflicting with the half tones around it.
So we're just going to knock it back
and
block this out. Here too, right, now to get a little more
specific this part particularly right that upper turn of the
from what our view is the right side of the chin. That is
the lightest part. Everything else is already turning away
from the light, turning down.
Adding even more form, right? I'm a little - right we need to
kind of simplify, remove some of these edges, patch over them
enough for them to vanish, but still be clear.
But still be clear. Now clearly what's lacking is this -
this whole part underneath the right side of the lip, much
darker value, right, it existed before it was the proper value
in relation to everything else. But no longer.
But no longer. And now I can begin to
show that form underneath.
Always step back always examine take a look figure it out from
afar.
Don't try to figure it out from up close. Now this edge right
here, right that little bit, looking at it
you can see there's that lip I was talking about right?
So you have the lips themselves, right, and then you
have this sort of protrusion on the outermost edges, right, the
closest to a true - something that could be an outline. kid could be an outline.
We need to get it a little bit more -
we need to show it. So for this, this brightest plane needs to
come down
in value, right? That's what I mean when I say it needs to
come down.. Needs to come down in value.
And then you bring out and erase out that edge right race out that edge right that
here, follow that area all along and keep getting
smaller and smaller in terms of highlights. Right? Keep inching
towards them. Now on the one hand you could just erase,
you could just get a tone down and erase that highlight out
which we're going to encounter
in other projects
or you can
or you can -
lost my train of thought there.
Or you can keep them, right, you can work
in a way that's more akin to watercolor where
the white and you arrive like - you kind of slowly -
you define it by everything around it.
In reality in the end you end up doing every technique that
you have in the book like to make it work.
So at times you just erase highlight but then you still
got to go and sharpen it right? You still gotta get in there
and make sure it's the right shape and so on so forth. So
when we got right here, this probably needs to tone back
right? It's already kind of closer to the shadow side of
the face, meaning we need to preserve our lights right here.
Now, let's move this along, right? Let's get this right
here. Let's get this
down to there.
I've made a mess underneath so I'm going to clean this up a
little bit.
All right, don't worry about it.
No one said of drawing easy to clean.
And no one said a cast drawing needs to be clean though a lot of
them are and that seems to be the most important thing about
them sometimes.
Instead of a true understanding of the form and what we're
looking at and the whole point of the whole thing.
Yeah, so it's important to
really analyze right, too.
Work hard at analyzing it
but in the analysis, that's the working smart part right? Isn't
that the whole thing I hear nowadays, right,
work smart not hard or something. I think you should
do both.
You should work hard but smartly if you will.
I'm feeling this is a little bit inflated right now, right?
You can see it I've over-exaggerated over I've over-exaggerated
those soft transitions not enough hard edges between
planes even though they're almost lines.
But not enough I think.
Now, you know, let's resolve some of these outer edges a
little bit.
Resolve some of those.
I personally am a big fan of how light this area is, right?
It's clearly shadow, but it's not overpowering. It's not like
a black
hole on the page.
We can slightly tone it down, right, we can get a little bit
more tone there.
But it allows us to focus on the form of the lips as the
primary area here. I feel like getting into here might be good
too,
right, just ending the lips a little bit.
Allowing that little reflected light to define the left-hand
corner, a little bit there, little bit here. But this is this part
like, you know, you're reaching the end where you begin to like
you focus on one area, but now you're hopping around again.
Clearly
you're moving towards
the
end there.
Now a similar thing that would be helpful is to do we would be helpful is to do
what we did with the eye, right? We did some of the occlusion
shadows, some of the areas we focused on by making them
clearly sharper and a darker value and I think what we need
to do here is this protrusion along the central
line, accent it with sharpness and a darker value.
Corners of the mouth just a bit.
Moving that up a little bit, right, that lip has a under
plane, right, meaning it'll be in half tone.
Good, good, good. I'm like what I'm seeing.
And yeah, and you know, isn't that interesting like I catch
myself on this but like when you're doing it and like I do
actually say this in my head, like I'm liking what I'm seeing.
It's interesting because I am not - I'm looking at something I did
but I'm trying to be as objective as possible.
I'm trying to look at it as though somebody else, as though
a student of mine and that's kind of interesting thing
because I teach
a lot and so I've been able - it's always easier to critique
somebody else's. I think it's always as though the
instructors have all of the answers, but in fact it it is
just easier to see errors in somebody else's
artworks. Artwork is not the right term. In their technical
exercises. It's easier to
to see those technical mistakes because you approach
it,
you're kind of unbiased,
you probably still are but not to that same extent, you just
you come at it, they'll jump out at you right away.
And I think the goal is to try to treat your own work in the
same
way if possible. It's not always easy
because it gets emotional, right, like you end up getting caught
up in it, you end up - I hear this often from students
and I do this, right, you see you hear how you hate
something like you just end up hating
a piece and that's
kind of ridiculous because it just it brings in emotion at a
time when you need to be thinking as clearly as possible,
right, like there are times when you work intuitively and you
don't worry about the emotional
component because that's just what's happening,
but you need to stop that when you realize
you hate it.
Because as soon as you hate it you can't understand what's
wrong with it. You can't correct it
at that point. You need to remove any ability to sort of -
like it's not a judgment. You just need to critique it as you
as you would somebody else's work. And in the case of you
guys, you know, in the case of, you know, a friend who who asks
your opinion,
right, like you don't ever really hate it because you're
not really emotionally involved. It might not be
something that you would have maybe attempted, but you can
sort of be objective about your criticism, help correct things
that you clearly see are wrong.
So
all I'm saying, probably what I'm saying is
that the it's the teaching actually that helps you be more
critical of your own work. It helps you -
it helps your technique and everyone talks about how, you
know, how teaching makes you a better artist and
I think that is the case indeed. It's a little more
complicated than just that but that is the case.
I'm actually okay with what I'm seeing here.
I'm okay with it.
The edges, the contours kind of I think are resolved. I feel
that this is
structural.
And yet
there's enough of a tonality actually,
but it has a structure.
Just kind of leave the page but I like what I'm seeing.
I like what I'm seeing, you know, but then you can't leave
it alone because you know you get obsessed with stuff, but I
think we're good. I think we're good. So alright that concludes
the mouth of Michelangelo's David.
Let's move on to the rest of the features.

In this assignment, using the images or the 3D scans provided
with this course, you're going to be working on the cast of
the mouth or lips.
It's very important that you work on the cast if you happen
to have one at home or access to one
then use that of course, but it's very important that you're
not working on the lips or mouth in the context of a
portrait because the idea here is to have a cast so that you
minimize the effects of color and the translucency of skin
and all those other things that we're going to talk about in
this course, but for now this is all about figuring out how
to model a structure and if you have done the other parts of
this course and you're familiar with the anatomy then obviously
use this in order to increase your understanding of the form.
But if you haven't, it's equally important that you practice
this so that you learn how to work with the interplay of
light and shadow on a particular element, in this case
the mouth.