Okay, so we have been
working on casts up to this point and we're finally about
to tackle the concluding assignment. I've told you a lot about this
and this particular cast I believe is going to be the
hardest of all the ones that we've spent time on.
And possibly because it seems like it should be the easiest.
So I think talking about it
isn't going to be that helpful. I think working on it
and explaining it
is what we should focus on. So with that let's begin and enjoy
this
particular challenge.

Okay.
So I've been excited about this because I knew that this was
going to be the concluding cast, right? The one that we're
going to sort of - it's the combination of everything
we've done up to this point with the cast and also before
the cast.
The reason is that I had
an instructor even before I went to the academy who
taught me to really appreciate this kind of early Renaissance
art work, this particular kind of sculpture that's somewhere
between the gothic period and the early Renaissance. Now where
exactly this particular cast is in that timeframe I on that in that timeframe. I
wouldn't be able to tell you at the moment, but I'm not sure
that that's that important. What's important is that you can
see that
up to this point we've been thinking in planes, right,
breaking things down into having concrete edges.
In this case this is not going to be easy this is not going to be easy
because primarily this head is is an egg and all the forms
within that egg actually smaller eggs.
And so the real challenge is to see how we can use that
construction, right, that more egg like, more organic
construction where we can but also we still need to insert a
certain planar understanding into the cast.
That's the challenge. I don't even think in the long run
it will take me as long
as the previous cast because there's not that - there isn't
like that same amount of information.
But it's definitely about the practice of making things as
soft as possible. So the one thing to keep in mind,
right, if you have a large enough piece of paper -larger
than mine - you can do the head, the neck, as well as the entirety of the
bust and shoulders and all that stuff. I'm going to focus
primarily on the head with a little bit of a hint at things
over the head without focusing too much on that. I
don't think that's the goal here. The goal is not to have a
complete cast, the goal
is to establish a principle
and an understanding
of
how to apply everything that we've been talking about
to something where it's almost impossible to where it's almost impossible to
apply, right? It's almost inapplicable.
Going to start with that center line. I'm still
focusing on the structure. Notice the tilt, right? There's
a strong tilt
of the head there's also some stuff on top, hair and all
that. Now you can already see
the clear - like how clearly this is unlike our previous cast of
the cadaver.
Right, you can see the hand of the artist. You can see the
simplifications. You can see how I mean this whole thing
that we've been talking about, right, this whole like egg like
quality
is the interpretation of the artist. I mean chances are he
might have had a model
that
you know, exemplified certain of these of these qualities,
you know, and that was of interest to our artist, but
at the same time
they're clearly accentuated. They're clearly, you know, everything
is extremely soft and beautiful because of that I think.
There's a softness here and there's sort of - you're almost
thinking of the challenge, right? There's a challenge
here.
So,
but the same time we lay things in just as we have
been, right, take some proportions from the chin to
the base of the nose. move it up. Not necessarily a classic
proportion here, right? Not necessarily a classical
proportion. The chin might have to come up, right,
everything is sort of - the the chin is receding along that
center line, right? It also is sort of egg like everything is
a form like this. At
the same time, right, I do want to talk about something that I
mentioned before.
In that right, if there's a softness
then you should be thinking in harder edges, you know harder
lines, in longer angles. If there's a sharpness
then you should be finding a softer more curved line.
And at the same time there are times when you know, you just
want to actually kind of move with the overall egg like
structure. So
I'm going to just lay that in for the terminator.
And knock that back.
Just get that a little bit softer, right?
Obviously, it's more specific.
Obviously, it's more specific.
But we just want to get a feeling of feelings of this.
Now
the very like, if we just lay in our shadows just without
anything else we're going to run into a problem I think. I'm
going to run to the problem that by leaving the half-tones
as light as possible this is sort of an issue, right? because
It's going to prevent us from like immediately
figuring out that egg like understanding of the form. So
in a sense we need to take that basic placement of the
terminator, right, and just move it into
our half tones.
So this is very much unlike how we worked before. Now, of
course, you can think of the previous
approach and you can apply it but I think with every single
cast, right, the goal that I have is to expand, it's kind of take
your understanding a little bit past the previous point, right?
I think the main idea of this course ,and I
think
we've accomplished it,
is that there's enough reinforcements of the past
principles, right? We're talking about a way to start
ahead or just start apart or, you know, an object or anything
that we're working on it at the particular moment
by sort of working within a procedural understanding
or deviating off of a certain procedural understanding, right,
so it's not random.
So it's definitely not random.
So,
but I'm trying to keep a softness here.
Right, because I feel like if I were to just work on this cast,
and it's very possible, in the same way as I did the cadaver
cast,
that guy,
I think that would not be as helpful to you.
You can do that on your own without this.
but now that we're moving into sort of a slightly new
thinking, right, a new way of thinking while still applying
all those -
all those other other things we've spoken about.
I think this is where the learning is happening.
See so I am, I'm still worried about just a general
placement of shadow, you know, all that stuff. Just
kind of a movement
there.
But getting back to that terminator.
But soft soft soft soft. So here
I'm using something to smudge everything just so I can get
that softness,
just so I can get that softness.
Right, but let's look at that. We can just think of this
already as sort of an extension from that egg.
And then of course this has to fall in a little bit more.
All right, look at that.
It's weird, right?
It's an interesting way to a
get into this. Now, keep in mind I think this will all be
very very helpful in the future. This will all be
sort of all of this is just a combination of all of it is the
technique
that we're using.
And when we switch to a softer medium and when we do all that
enjoyable stuff, when we really begin to experiment and play
around a little bit more.
Now, of course if we're not focusing within this,
if we're not thinking of the shape of the structures
then,
you know, then we're not really doing what we need to be doing
and what we have been thinking but up to this point. I am
keeping - I am not over hatching at the moment, right? I want
establish some sort of underlying.
underlying tonality
before I move into any sort of
stronger hatch. And here the hatch has to be a little more
careful right, because
we need to -
we can't just
hatch away, right, the same way in which you know kind of
like the edge of the hatch is giving us a plane.
I mean we have to do that, but we have to be very
very careful.
Mmhmm.
Some of these shadows are coming about, right, so
form of the lips, look closely, fine with that lip is
underneath, but then also
where that cast shadow begins and ends.
Okay.
We'll work into all this as we go.
All right, but now let's extend things, right extend some of
these half tones. Look at that.
Let's extend them into, right, we're immediately getting that
softness. Now. The problem of course is we've got to be very
careful. We got to make sure that our terminator still reads.
But it's sort of a painterly application. Right? paint early application. Right?
Don't worry if the particular parts, right, like the mouth
itself isn't exactly as you see it, right? It's not the precise
outline. That's not so much the concern. I'm more interested
in seeing what's the maximum amount of just a large, organic
organization
that we can get here
without -
oh, there we go. See that line was even off, but I'm using
that half tone.
Hmm. Okay.
I'm actually gonna switch to a harder pencil here. And let's
lay in that side plane
of the nose.
Don't over hatch, right, there will be time for hatching here.
I just don't want
you to
kind of make those things a little bit more intense. than they
need to be, right? And that goes back to me
kind of switching the goalposts a little bit every time, right?
They're still pretty much where the goal is but not
exactly.
Right, some angles. The corner of the base of the nose to the
corner of the eye, good.
It seems reasonable to me.
I'm gonna jump, I'm gonna work off of this terminator, right?
Everything is the softness, the softness is everything.
Afterwards we can break it down into plants a little bit more.
This is kind of the high point, right? This is kind of the
hardest
exercise but also from an artistic standpoint one of the
greatest technical achievements.
Like all that stuff that actually came after this head,
right, all the intense anatomy and bulbous
elements, that do look cool,
is kind of a not that interesting really?
It's not
really arriving at some sort of
emotional response in reaction to a form. Now that could be a
personal,
I'm sure it is a personal interpretation
but if I had to pick between
this particular head and any of Michelangelo's sculptures, I'd
pick this head.
And I'm certain that everyone's going to argue with me about
that.
But I'm not saying one is really I'm not really saying
that one is better than the other, just keep that in mind.
I'm just saying that
for me personally this has a greater effect.
All right. See so I'm just treating those - it's like I
start with a block and now I'm carving - I'm carving into it,
right? I'm carving the entirety of the orbit of the eye. Now
can you even speak about the orbit of the eye here? I guess
to some extent right but not like in the previous cast,
right, not -
you can think of a plane of the eye which is
clearly there, that supraorbital margins that are there and
they're quite clear actually.
But can you think of the orbit like can you really spot the kit like an you really spot the
entirety of a skull
inside
this head?
I don't think so. Not really.
You can attempt to but I don't think you're really there.
Take your time with this, you'll see that if you do take your
time with these sort of earlier
kind of just
global
tonalities, I guess, these sort of large
gradations
you'll see quite soon that you're actually -
to take it from that to something a little more
completed is not that difficult.
And already - you can already see it kind of becoming
the head.
This is kind of enjoyable, right? This is actually one of the
more enjoyable things because you're just focusing on larger
form, these big simplifications. It's lovely, really.
Now, of course the other one
looks cooler.
Of course it does. There's no question.
Then we go back to that cool again. Like how cool is cool.
The roundness of the frontal bone. The frontal bone right is
interesting. The hairline is very very high,
chances are it was just sort of popular at the time.
Women - I'm not sure if this happened in Italy
as it did happen in some of the
other countries of the of the time, I think in Germany
and Flanders and all of those places, but women would
pluck out the hair on top here, right, in order to have a
higher hairline.
That was attractive at the time.
Right, I can see already right, there are some cast shadows
really describing form, but I'm not sure I'm interested in them
to that extent yet.
I want to see the maximum I can have on the page without having
anything on the page really, without having any of the stuff
from the previous assignments, without previous assignment without
having any of those small curves and indentations and all
that stuff.
And small tiny little cast, you know, like
that's really enjoyable stuff,
but it's not
what we're looking at here.
See so I'm using the eraser a little bit more, right? We're
getting closer to the way that we're going to be working and
thinking what something like sanguine or charcoal.
But this is still graphite and it will allow us to slow down
in a little while.
To you know, spend some time modeling all that stuff. All
that stuff we all love.
Here
the axes are a little bit more important in the sense that the
artist made sure the alignments were there, right, the
alignments were on point.
Now clearly we're not even thinking about how light
or dark our half tones are. If you notice we're not that
concerned with our lights falling into our shadows and so
on. The terminator still is pretty obvious, right, the
terminator's still clear. So that's at least as long as we
have that we're kind of in the right end and the right in the
ballpark, right? We're in the right place.
As long as we have that we're in the ballpark.
Now, let's hint at some of this hair. Not hair but all
this, all that that stuff on the head,
right? Notice that it's already interpreted by an
artist, which is a different thing right? It's already that
there's patterns and movements in the hair
that contribute to the general proportions and directions in
the head, right? It's that plasticity
of the sculpture, the internal
rhythmic
information.
Okay, so I'm kind of all right with this. I would continue
down a little bit though because we are still doing
at least a part of the neck and I'll see how far to take it as
we go, right
just let's
lock that in kind of smear it around just a little bit. See
see what we have there.
See where this neck is and this part, maybe
this comes in. I think we'll keep carving at that until we
get it right.
And see by just not applying
too much of the graphite, the eraser's actually quite powerful.
I can erase a really sharp edge, really sharp line. Okay, so
I'm gonna need a pencil that's relatively soft for our main
shadows. And now it's time to get a bit of a clearer
placement on some of these shadows, right, to work that
terminator into the softness that it is, as well as finding those is as well as finding those
sharps.
So let's get
some of these forms of the nose. We already have them,
right? Let's see that's the end of the base of the nose.
You can even see, right, all that stuff we did that was just so
obvious on a large - like a nose, a plaster nose clearly,
that's going to be clear.
But even on the other cast, on the other head,
right, that light on the wing of the
of the nostril of the nose. That was large.
Because the wing itself was large.

Softness, right? So we're just
getting that soft for now.
Now what do we have right here?
And look at that. We still have that bit of reflected light on
the wing
underneath as it curls under.
All that same stuff just on a much smaller scale. Now
let's try to place that cast shadow, right? Because cast
shadow is going to give us proportions. So see at first we
thought maybe things would starting out a little bit,
you know a little bit haywire kind of everything's on its
own. This is a new approach. It's frightening. But as you
see
right into what we've done
we can reintroduce old concepts.
Now I'm using
this whole area because it's one of the few that really has
clear shadows, right, clear falling into and out of shadows
and shapes.
I'll get into the specifics to that later.
Right now let's just keep moving.
Let's just keep moving.
Let's see what's going on with the lip, right, that
middle part, but on the sides it actually becomes extremely
thin.
And then let's take it up to here,
see where that ends.
You can see the corner of the mouth there.
And then we drop this,
bring that around.
So core and cast shadows right way we find them way, we find them.
and end them, right? See where this whole mass ends.
Take your time.
I'm trying to be
kind of slow and deliberate here because
if you're not,
cleaning this up is much harder. That's not the
reason, right, in a lot of ways and you see this right ,you get
something wrong, you get the - move it around, erase
around it. These sharpens and forms are pretty much there.
This is not that easy with something as soft and as
precise as this head.
You want to try to get it right, not so much that, you know, the
individual outlines of shadows and the shapes of the features.
That if you get wrong, you can carve and figure out. It's the
values that I think you got to be a little bit more - take them
slow and build them up.
Look at that.
We're getting somewhere.
Is it the exact lip? No,
it isn't.
Okay.
Do we have much else in terms of shadows?
Not really. I'm gonna just find that angle of the nose, bring it up,
and let's find this, right? Let's find
that shadow right here.
That shadow, that turning of the form.
Find it as a shape. Don't worry so much about
what's really going on in terms of core, cast, and so on. It's
very slight and we're going to get there.
Now we just need our shadows.
I'm just laying them in right now is core and
cast. I was going to become lighter.
We'll hatch over them, but I want them there. I would still
need some light. We need some feeling of light.
Okay, so now I'm pretty much convinced with this and now
kind of take your time to establish the corner of the eye.
Get the creases in but work from the outer part of the
upper lid to the outer part of the lower lid right go all the
way
and then begin to do something
like this.
Right now we're really getting into that feeling. Right? We
did this, the eye is a ball, it's a sphere inside the as it's a sphere inside the
head. So I did say you can't see the orbit and maybe you
can't, right, from the
anatomical sort of point of view. Right? I can't really see
a skull inside this head, but I can see that the artist knew
what a skull looked like and use those principles wisely.
Understood that the eye must come out, you can see it in terms
of even the values right, the upper eyelid and this whole
area does belong to the skull while you can see
the actual eyelid
is catching light because it's a sphere, a ball.
Nice, look at that. Look at that, looking good.
So
just extend that, just make sure to take from the tear duct in
the corner of the eye, inner corner,
bring down a vertical.
It should fall pretty much somewhere here I think.
It does, good, nice,
right, but always
find it on the page before you correct yourself, right, kind of
before you take proportions. Proportions are
taken last, not at the beginning.
Small proportions, like a large proportions you can take
right away.
Oh, there we go.
Right so we even have the our terminator clearly seen. Now
in a sense this might be the perfect head for someone who
doesn't yet know anatomy, right? You're just focusing on
forms.
It might be easier
for a person who doesn't know anatomy
I'm thinking, because when I worked on this head when I was
a teenager,
that's when I first encountered this particular cast, maybe
not this exact sculpture but one that was quite ask but one that was quite
close to this,
I do not know the anatomy of the skull. I knew some anatomy
because I was always interested in it, but not the
anatomy of the skull.
That was not something I knew so in a sense I didn't need to
think of the skull inside, that wasn't necessary, because you
can see now as we inch closer to say the
zygomatic, you can really see that there is a skull, right, you
can see these lights. They're not random.
Extend that shadow just a bit.
Look at how soft I can make that, that's fun.
I'm liking this.
I'm like this exercise.
Here I go again me enjoying these assignments more than I
thought I would.
And I mean that, you know, not that I thought I wouldn't but
you know, it's more me saying about how you know
one
can generally think of casts, you know, in this way.
Just the cast.
Yeah.
That's just exercises.
But exercises are fun.
And there's so much you learn, so much you -
my goodness, but I've always loved sculpture and this could
be a reason I'm enjoying this as much as I am,
right, you just get to spend time with
a sculpture, an incredible work of art. And I think the way that
you handle it, the way that you model
then can move into
the way you model everything else. So this particular
softness I'm liking. I feel like you can have a real role,
can play a pretty big role in my other work, right? So like
just don't think of a cast as exclusively an exercise,
think of it as something that at any point in time in your
artistic experience and career can open your mind to new
possibilities.
Say so I'm just inching towards something. I don't always even
know what it is, right I'm just getting these half tones,
getting these
values, making sure it's relatively soft. But that
little bit of a hatch in size, making it a little bit. -it's
not making it just, you know, a balloon. We're not
interested in a balloon.
We're interested in something that has a little bit, you know,
it has a -
it's a bit more
structured than that.
All right. Now clearly, right,
looks looks a little weird. We're not around here. We're not
accustomed to this. We're not accustomed to keeping our
half tones so much like keep pushing them darker
than our shadows. We're not accustomed to that.
So we're gonna have to figure what out what to do with this, right?
We're probably going to go make some distinctions. But look at
how sort of
how
airy all of it becomes when you do do that, right? As I
said, whenever I say, this is a rule, in my mind I also say
I just have found a bunch of exceptions to that rule. Like
there aren't any real rules here. So
I'm actually liking that affect. Most likely we do have to
return to our understanding of terminator lines and probably
make
that whole area darker value, right? So we clearly see that
as a shadow, but I don't know
if we're going to really
do that much.
Maybe we can practice focusing all our energy and all our
emphasis towards the front of the face?
Right, more than towards the side.
Maybe all of this can just
vanish into a haze a little bit,
which you know,
that's the thing I'm talking about. This might not take as
long as some of the other ones we did.
But it's taking a lot of mental energy, I have to tell you, to
make this as soft as I want this, right, to get that to turn
just ever so gradually.
Because I personally just knowing my own tendencies as an
artist, I like a sharp edge.
Or rather my hand tends to gravitate
towards making sharper edges, you know, like sharper
lines, hatching, all that I love but I also love the way a
softer turn looks.
So there's this combat
in my mind a little bit.
Sort of
the things I enjoy in art and what my hand tends to do.
Look at that. Look at that. Cool.
There's almost something
Egyptian here, right, of the - it's reminding me of the
sculpture of Nefertiti
that's in the museum in Berlin that when I saw
I thought my goodness, that's a hell of a sculpture.
Yes, those were the words, right, I wasn't overthinking it.
Usually when that's the response I have, then it's
really having an effect, right? Because when I have a response
that's, you know, comparing a work of art to another work of
art I'm overanalyzing,
Then I like it on some sort of intellectual -
on some sort of intellectual capacity, but I'm not into it
really on an emotional level but with that
sculpture and when I see sculptures of this era, which is
a very different era, but when I see sculptures of this era
with their
sort of egg like curvatures,
they hit me an entirely - like it's entirely emotional
not analytical, not heady.
That's what art is kind of about, right?
I'm gonna keep at this right. Now I'm sort of hatching along that
terminator.
There are specific things going on in this area that are really
characteristic and I'm not getting them yet.
Oh look at that. That angle.
Those angles aren't what I want yet.
I want this to look like our model.
But I will get there in time.
But that whole side plane, look at that. Just knocking that
back helps a bunch,
right, because you want to show that this part of the
orbicularis oris, her lip right there, but it's coming out all
the same principles. Just everything is much more -
much harder to see but it's still there.
Alignments, eye to eye, right, upper lid.
Make sure that reads
and then you can kind of much more calmly, once you have that,
alignment much more calmly block things in.
Just bring that in more.
And raise the forehead.
hmm
I still don't know. I still don't know. This is getting home
the particular shape of the upper lip there.
Be very very careful.
I think we're somewhere.
But I don't know if it's exactly where I want to be yet.
That's pretty much where that
ear is that you can see that the ear is wrapped in this
cloth, which is great because it gives the placement of the
air without us having to draw an ear and you know, you can
avoid drawing an ear you might as well admit it.
Here is a plane break. You can see it.
And we know it's there, we can also see it, but it's got to be
soft, right? This is already side plane, catching all
those reflections.
So what I would like to do
is make sure the nose at the right height
and to extend
some of our
darker half tones.
Let's say moving them up here, moving them across here.
The reason this is so soft here is because these half tones are
dark value.
Now those half tones are dark values is because the curvature is
much more gradual.
So the question is right, you can explain this in multiple
ways. You can explain this from an optical way, right? You can
say this is very soft
because of the values that the values are soft and so on or
you could explain this from the starting point of a -
from a structural starting point, right, where there's this
particular turn of the form.
It's entirely up to you.
But notice how this approached kind of teaches you how to
explain it from both directions.
Okay,
we're getting that larger turn of the form.
Moving that up,
That too right, I had a very sharp line there, kind of crease. I
don't know if that's exactly what would have worked for that
area. I don't think so. That's why I got rid of it.
Everything needs to be softer.
Like all I want you to do while working on this is just repeat
the words that I'm saying, right? So everything is soft
soft soft. You just keep saying it so that you
become more attentive to the sharper edges, right? If
you make a sharp edge just because you keep telling
yourself it has to be soft, it has to be soft, it has to be soft,
you will automatically remove that sharp edge,
even if it's correct, but I'm okay with that.
All right say so just wrapping that form around.
Now of course,
there's an issue here. We'll counter it. But the them will counter it but the
main issue
is
that this half tone becomes a very dark value compared to the
our background because we're not really putting in the value
of the background, it's not really pitch black and a part of this
contrast is what contributes to that softness
in a way, right? Because it just gets kind of unifies the
light on the head and then just push things back. We're going
to try to avoid this
but because of this we might actually have to make
some of the movements from half tone to half tone time to have tongue
even softer.
Usually, right, kind of in the academy they taught us always
emphasizes the zygomatic, right, because it's a bone sticking
out, catching that strong light now. Of course that's often the
case, but in this case because everything is so soft the
zygomatic is just a part of that curvature. It's there, you
can really see it and we'll define it more and more as we
cut it into planes. All right. I'm already sort of a little -
doing that a little bit but it can't compete with the with the
form turning towards the light in that corner of the eye.
Notice how just the form itself is guiding your eye
into the right place, right? It's guiding your eye to
look at her eyes.
Because that's where that strong highlight is.
So I'm keeping at this a little bit. Just knock that
back.
Just knock that back.
Awesome.
I think things are going pretty well done down here. I would
actually stop for a moment
and move up a little bit, right, move up to some of these things,
right? Here you almost can't avoid
the planar -
like just the thinking in planes up in the head right?
Because no matter how soft it is, if it's too soft it's just
a round mass,
not enjoyable to look at. So there's no way that
a sculptor of the caliber
created this masterwork would do this. Right? So we're
going to get the same forms either. Look at that the
zygomatic process, fantastic you can see it all.
So that's that side plane.
Soften it.
I don't need that very hard.
I've lost the terminator of course,
but I knew that would happen.
I swear to you
we'll get it back.
Even the zygomatic process, softer. Not that bright.
That whole form of the bridge of the nose and the glabella,
in right, this is an egg of its. Own egg
and then a lot of small eggs, but until then, you know.
Let's kind of define
the frontal eminence, but
that's good,
that line I drew, right, that triangle, probably going to be
one of our brightest highlights. So let's just clear
that a little bit.
And then
we get the plane besides, turning away from us.
Okay. Now what I'm getting though, I'm just going to take
a vertical to the outer most point on that side of the face
and this point it does come out a little bit in front.
There's some specificity lacking right in the
particular placement of the mouth.
All of that stuff. But we'll get there. It's fine.
Let's do this. Let's do this.
Let's do this.
So we get that sharpness on the orbits.
And then straight from here, right, we have little curls or
and we have this it all shadow, right?
Just knock that back.
Look at that. We've been working for a little bit, but you could see
how much like how far it has come and how
intense I'm trying to preserve
this head right? I'm trying to preserve this main quality that
I brought up right at the beginning. That softness.
The eraser here is necessary to really find that, find these
cuts.
There we go.
Okay.
That took a lot of energy
and I need a moment. I need a moment to step away. See I
can't even -
because otherwise, I'll just keep smearing everything,
smoothing everything down. I need a moment to step away,
come back, reassess the proportions, and then continue
with small refinements, right? The refinement in this case
begins a little earlier. Okay. I'll see you soon.

I've taken a moment and I -
a few things I see that I'd like to alter but then it's
pretty much on the right track. So let's just keep
at it. Keep thinking of that soft change of plane,
except we weren't really thinking in planes. Now, let's
begin to still keep everything as soft as possible but in our
minds at least keep those plane changes clear.
So,
where are we here? Now the one thing I do want to change though I
have to tell you is this part right here, right, the
zygomatic process of the frontal bone because over
there it's unbelievably soft.
I think
just as long as you don't count the amount of times
I say how soft everything is then you'll be fine.
Or play any kind of a game with that.
Don't recommend that
especially
I'm already
a little concerned that at amount of times I'm repeating
it.
So yeah, see if just but at the same time look at that movement
here that you can use whatever you're using to smear with
to kind of wrap around that form, right, don't just
smudge something
in order to get it soft, wrap around the form,
allow the half tones that happened because of what you're
smearing with to appear
as you observe them.
I mean that's easier said than done, I get it. But
okay. So
where are we here?
All right. I would like to just get a little bit more
information on the eye.
Right, hard pencil, just begin to figure stuff out, right? Where
is that lower lid,
how dark is that lower lid, it's clearly in a half tone,
at least in a half tone.
Wrap that half tone around and you realize that the left
side it's more than just a half tone, sort of shadow.
Oh, look at that. Wonderful. It's already
beginning. Now. What was interesting, right, is that
right now the effect is very close to the one we had from
our previous cast, right, that guy with his eyes closed. So we
were able to focus on this general mass, which is what's
happening now, isn't that wonderful. So I actually almost
recommend this as a technique. Even if the eyes are open, try
to place them on the page as if they're closed.
You get better results that way in the sense that they will be -
would be much more of an eye, right, much more of a sphere
inside a socket than
anything else right now.
Just need some placement things, right? So now
just going to begin
hinting, pretend you're sculpting this eye, you just rolled
a ball and put it in a socket and now
you're carving. Now in a sense you can do both ways. You can
place the ball and then you can add the upper lid and lower lid,
in our case pretend the ball is larger, and now you're using
a tool to carve out that opening between the lids.
There we go.
Step back. Always step back. Be careful opening up the eye too
much. There is a lot of character here, but do place
that line
of the iris.
Do make sure it's in the right place.
Now, let's get more in here. Let's get more in here.
Look at that.
I'm
moderately satisfied with this
because now we can, right, extend
this
as a
terminator. Sorry cast shadow. Bring it up to this wrapping of the
cheekbone, the zygomatic, and bring it down.
It's a little sharp still but we're going to keep it for now.
Because we need that precision
for placement.
Right take your time, take your time with stuff.
There will be a time soon when we work on more complicated
projects.
A nude
or example where I would say the opposite of take your time.
I would say just the attack the page, right, just move
some tone around, make sure it works as you go, right, correct
as you go.
Carve that lower lid. What is that light on it?
Good.
Look how round that feels. I'm -
remember what I did with the Michelangelo eye.
I made it even sort of rounded and more protruding than the
cast we had.
And I think I'm doing the same thing here, and I'm okay with
that.
Awesome.
Now I'm making the mistake, of course
of
spending too much time on one eye without the other.
This is classic.
You want to do both at once. However
I'm more concerned with not leaving it right. I don't want
to just leave this eye and move on to something else and not have
that at all. I'm going to place the other eye undoubtedly,
there's going to be there.
And now I can based on the one that I already have.
Now upper lid.
But I'm not going to get the lower. I'm just going from the
upper, I just needed to place it.
I'm just going to be here. Now the interesting thing here
right is because of the softness of this head becomes
very very clear that the eyes are of an angle. Right the eyes
are not parallel to the front plane, they're at a tilt
like the rest of the head. So everything here
is
structured in accordance with this egg-like principle,
right?
Things can't stand out here and be angular or be at a very
obvious right angle to something else. Everything is
soft, everything curves.
Now make sure to keep the erasers clean.
This is a big problem when you're trying to be careful,
right, the erasers smudge
or smear.
And then you can't erase anything past that so you might
have some marks like that. Don't worry about it.
It's got to clean up that whole side. There are specific things there
but
we'll get to them later.
Now what do we have here? Right. Let's
place the iris a little bit
just using the eraser to carve a little bit, but I'm not
getting a feeling
it's a little bit too - I'm not getting that turn, right? I want
to see it wrap a little bit more.
I want to see that the outer corner is further
back than the
inner corner.
The lateral corner and the medial corner if you will.
Okay. Okay,
now just let's make sure to get everything in place, right,
because we do need that
side plane of this side of the nose, right, the nose
here also being in line with things being softer is not the
front plane and side plane of the nose are not at right angles, right?
They weren't in any of the cases that we - well maybe
in the cadaver head,
the death mask,
they were pretty much at right angles, but here they're not.
In a sense, you can't even imagine what the skull of this
person would even look like, right? It would just just be -
maybe the skull itself is an egg.
Wouldn't that be an interesting exercise?
To figure out what her skull looks like.
A morbid, slightly morbid exercise.
It's somehow not as morbid on a real person though, isn't it?
I've seen an assignment which I kind of enjoyed.
The assignment was to inscribe
a skull into a cartoon character.
So, you know, like Disney cartoon character or something
like this.
And the results were absolutely hilarious.
Though, yeah, in like quite a
morbid way.
Okay. So the eyes
more or less right actually think they're a little bit high
here. I'm going to bring this eyelid down a little bit and
bring the
upper part of the eyelid down as well, which is good for our
axes. We're just going to make sure those axes are correct.
Here I need a constant. I was going to do corner to corner.
Okay. Yeah, so that careful placement of the eyes, right,
took some time, but I'd rather, in this case, have them be in
place. I like to place eyes kind of haphazardly and then move
them around until they look right.
This would not have been the best time to do
this.
However,
maybe if I was working with a slightly different medium, right,
maybe if I was working with a softer medium. That could have
been the way to do it.
I'm losing the shadow right here.
Not what I want.
Not what I want, but I'll keep it for now.
My eraser.
Let's begin to define some of the shapes of the lips, still
stick with the harder pencils.
Because the details are so few, right?
Once you get them you're kind of there. That's the whole
head.
That's the lip, right? Once that little a
little corner of the mouth is in place
you don't have that much more to do in this head.
See, there's the classic mistake.
Let's really look to find the Terminator.
It's right there.
Look at that, wonderful. That's where it is.
See, this is a much more since contemplative exercise. I don't
know,
it's not -
it's more of a sort of a meditation on
on this head,
on the concept of egg heads.
Yes egg heads.
But not so much,
you know, it's not about much else.
This requires
for more concentration.
It teaches you to take your time little bit more.
Zoom in
as much as you can.
Excellent.
Okay, so that light.
Find that separation, cast and core, upper lip, lower lip.
It's not easy
at all.
Oh, look at that. Look at that. That's really - getting there.
But you can clearly see it, maybe it's too much, right? It
already it requires us to think in our half tones, and
it's made our half tones feel too light.
And there we go that now really has started us off on this
process.
But remember that there is not as much of an edge between the
like the lips of the corners as there is in the
front. We've encountered that before.
Not as much of an edge.

Going down that terminator.
So yes, of course, not much of an edge, which means that this
half tone is stronger. Now clearly the mouth is now
standing out as like as though her lips are painted on. I've her lips are painted on.
This is a no-go
because it's clearing not what's happening.
Clearly not what's happening. So we're going to get more
information in there in just a minute.
And by that I mean we just need to tone down the rest of
the features.
Maybe the terminator on the side of the head.
Just all that needs to go darker, but you see we need to
be very careful. Down here closer to the mouth and the
chin we could pretty much use these darker half tones. We can
really play with them.
You can make them more obvious because we need to curve that
head in, it's gonna be harder up here.
Considering the eyes are hardly even creating reliefs
this adds an added bit of difficulty.
Oh boy.
The challenge is now clear.
Excellent,
but the real brightest part is in that corner of the mouth
on the right. So that lip itself needs to come down in
value.
Now
what's going to really help here? And of course the light
right there.
Look how strong that is, look how that really brings it up to a
sharper point. The sharper points are all along this line.
We have to be careful.
I would go back into the nose just a tad.
I mean, I'll go in enough to darken. That's for sure,
that's a given.
Now the interesting thing about this right is that I
actually don't have as much to tell you.
This is more of something that you observe,
a lot of it of course is I'm repeating principles that we've
covered and I'm glad that there is always a chance to reinforce
some of these but this is as a project is a lot more is as a project is a lot more
intense, I think.
And so
I just - it's more of a something you follow along, you observe.
There's not -
it's the ultimate application of everything that we've
learned up to this point.
The ultimate application.
Right all that stuff, of core shadow, cast shadow, being
precise on
discovering what's going to happening along an edge, how dark our
half tone should be coming up out of a
terminator, all that's what we're covering again, except
here,
on the [indistinct] of the other casts
if you move just a millimeter off to one side
it kind of falls apart.
This is the other thing right? The other guy, the
cast, previous cast,
you could have gone - because it hadn't been interpreted by
an artist
you were the artist interpreting it. So you could
you could do kind of whatever you want. Like if there are
characteristic qualities in that head,
you know, that you wanted to exaggerate it was all yours.
No one really cares. Of course if they compared it to the
original they could see that, you know, that's not exactly
what it is but
that was fine. That would have been fine the same way that you
almost have to do something like that
in a human
head and a portrait, right? The portrait is for you to
interpret.
Here
I'm a little more hesitant to interpret.
I think if you do this multiple times then perhaps you can get
to that point, but I feel that if I don't
respect the artist who made this, whoever that is
actually,
whoever this Italian guy might be,
then that's just not not right. That's not how I
want to approach this, right, here everything is picked with
purpose.
Look at that. So the general approach, right, you've noticed,
is a little bit this idea right like
emerging from the fog or emerging from the haze.
There's something to this because you could you probably
were able to see parts of this
kind of like certain
certain aspects of this hazy approach
in work that we have done up to this point, right, this working
in contrast not like,
you know working in just bringing out contrasts up
close
and kind of allowing things that are further away and not
as important to recede.
I haven't really discussed it too much
until this point
because I think, you know, there are ways to talk about this
without directly talking about it. You saw it happen, I
mentioned it in part, but you're also seeing it happen
here, right, as I pull out those features that are most
important I'm really not thinking about the other ones.
I will perhaps, if I feel that they're lacking and they need
to be a little bit more important
as
we move on but until then.
Interesting.
There's a particular softness here, but also a very precise
placement, right, that cast shadow of the lower lip is larger and
falls out again.
I think that's more characteristic of this head.
Let's enlarge that and there's, you know, and there's of a you know, and there's of
course
we have to think about what the difference is between one and
the other and so on, in terms of cast and core.
But not yet. Not yet. Look at where this chin is. I think
I have it too much. It's even more egg like, right, it even
goes even further in.
Now
back to what I was talking about before, if you -
back to what I was talking about just kind of allowing the artist to
interpret, right,
and here we're not as interpreter because we're
trying to be - we're trying to respect the artwork if you will.
Or not so much respect it, but more learn from it, right like
learn from those particular
elements that were
picked by the original artist and others that were left out.
We're trying to just
not so much just render form, but to understand
the ideas behind the creation of this form.
What I would like to - of course, you can argue the fact that
this whole idea, right, is the fact that I keep repeating
how soft this is and all that. That alone
is my interpretation of what I'm seeing. There is a way
to work on this head
and think about the exact opposite, right, to really make
it into a
planar construction.
That is possible and I actually think as a next
assignment it's quite interesting
but
I have picked this particular approach because I think it
works well in conjunction with the previous approaches that
we've had in modeling casts. And I've spoken about and I've never spoken about
that. So but if you so want to, right, if your interest is in
highly planar and figuring out very precise changes in plane
and doing all that stuff.
Then have at it, you absolutely should give this head a shot
in that way.
Explore the possibilities. Notice still not much hatch
here.
But let's try to find where we can.
Maybe we can divide things up into planes maybe little bit
more
like that.
We can see top plane, side plane, front, blend a little bit plain front blend a little bit
better.
Look at this inflated part of the nose, right the one that I
mentioned a number of times.
I love that thing. That's good.
I think we can push - look at that. And here is how we find
the orbit. There is an orbit. It's just hard to harder to
see.
It's in there.
What I do want though is a little bit more of this light
coming down that side of the face and then right since this
is already turning, it's already turning away from us,
this is what's going to be knocked back, knocked back, knocked back,
knocked back.
Fantastic.
We're running into a little bit of a problem again, right, that
terminator.
Not there yet
kind of in term of course I, don't, right, the terminator's
there, but the core shadow
is a little bit
lax.
Look at that kind of really pulling it out of the
paper.
Now it is of course still soft, right, isn't that the fun
part? We're still soft, but I think the planes are appearing.
We're seeing them happen.
The chin is not there. The chin is not there yet.
There are more precise
changes in plane and all that stuff,
but also, right, this is the bottom of that egg.
Possibly this needs to be
more active, right, that terminator on that
part.
Hmm.
Let's move up a little bit. Clearly we've done a fair
amount here and you could see how
I'm actually losing some of that softness
but I am getting a little bit clearer plane breaks. So that
brings us back to what we discussed
in the other casts, right, that you're going to always sort of move
between these two approaches.
You're going to see that one begins to take over at one
point and then the other takes over later.
Right you're going to see that one -
at first things are very very soft, exactly how you want
them.
But then as you're working on it
you lose a bit of that softness.
You get too many edges.
So then you got to pull back
and so that's the whole thing.
Now this is a particular structural part, right, of all
the places from a standpoint of what is going on inside the
head and the skull and all that,
this whole area
is quite structured.
Just gonna knock that back a little bit.
Use my
thing to smudge.
Got that, okay, half tone or whatever. There's a shadow.
That's fine.
I think the chin actually might be too big, like coming back
to the chin because I keep looking at it and it bothers me
right? I'm not getting enough of that curvature. Every time I
do a little bit, every time I carve into it and do something
it improves. So just going to keep doing that one sort of
mark at a time. I make a mark, I step back and move on, I come
back, make a mark and see where it goes, right,
that's sort of the way because I think the end with all of
those corrections it should more or less
fall into place.
A
little too bright on that reflected light.
Nice, look at that, okay.
So what do we have up top here?
Looking okay, actually.
I think I need to get.
that half tone
onto that intermediary plane of the forehead.
I need to get this top plane.
I need this top plane all the way up to this
hair piece or whatever that is.
But I also need this soft. That's the secret. That's the
secret. There we go.
Good, good, that front plane's getting to show.
I can erase into it just a tad though.
And make sure that we get enough information
over there. I'm thinking a little bit more in edges.
But I'm feeling like we're getting closer. I think it
looks more like her.
The features and modeling the features is going to be
a crucial part here.
I would get to
I think we're gonna spend some time up here next. I'm okay with what
I'm seeing.
I'm liking
things so far.
It's emerging out of that haze.
Let's take a moment.
Take a break. This does take a lot of concentration and
divert our eyes and then come back and
just keep at it as we have been doing.
See you in a second.

Alright, we've taken a few minutes and let's just keep at
this. There's a lot to do.
So
where were we now?
I think a little bit of an introduction of a hatch. Now
the thing that I did here that I'm noticing that I opened this
eye up a little bit more than I needed too, right? I cut that
eye open at the -
not the exact place I need it. All right, so that upper lid
actually a little bit, that's a little bit larger, but it's
definitely lower. So if it isn't larger then we have to
bring it down.
I'm not going to worry too much about this now though. I just -
something I noticed.
The rest of the proportions seem reasonable to me.
Right because this outer edge needs to be very clear. So we're
going to get there at some point.
All right, because that outer edge is the outer edge of that egg
and it's really hard to see
what's going on along that edge. So it's going to keep it
light for now.
We're going to get to it eventually.
I'm going to
keep working with that terminator though, right, this
terminator up here
on the frontal bone is not as simple as I laid it in first,
right? I need to get it to curve along the form of the
frontal bone here and extend these half tones
into that side plane,
right, and it's easy to see this is something a little bit more
organic than it is.
Right but this side plane has to be clear.
And it's still side plane if you of course consider the
slight changes happening on the
on the zygomatic process
of the frontal bone.
Keep things softer.
Keep things soft.
Do introduce some of these
lights.
And make sure, you can see that I'm using the eraser on
the side,
kind of just lifting up the tone. Now, you can use a kneaded
eraser for this
as well, but I wouldn't worry about it.
I'm not the biggest fan of those.
And I have been using them more and more but I don't
necessarily even know why I'm not the biggest fan anymore. I think
they do a good job.
But I once had something against them and I still have
something against them.
Maybe it's because they don't allow you to have an edge, right,
an edge and it sort of it maybe I think in the wrong hands be I think in the wrong hands
it ends up
simply erasing, you know, simply it doesn't really lift out a
tone evenly, so that's not it, that's not helpful, but it
doesn't really erase
that precisely
because the most important thing in a half tone is its
contours. Because those contours are also the contours of a
plane.
So let's knock that ear back, right, let's just extend some
of this.
It's not that - this contrast is hardly, like there's
hardly anything there. So it's okay for now. It needs
to appear, this head does need to begin to
appear from this background because without it of
course, it's lost.
That's the light on the hair there. In reality it's of course
much darker.
But now let's find
that receding plane of the top of the head.
And there it is. Right already this begins to kind of
look a little bit more like what we're looking at.
Look at how it's cut across, isn't that interesting?
It's almost a straight line. It creates a remarkable
contrast to that egg like quality, right? There's
the egg of the head and then there's these angles coming out
from it. These powerful perpendicular lines. All that
contributes to the plastic element, right the plasticity
of the head,
the rhythmic structures.
Excellent. Now, right look at how much, how completed
this edge will look as soon as it's cleaned up and I'm not
even sure it needs much more. It will get a little more so
don't worry about that, but
switch to a 2H
right? I want to define that front plane, that frontal
eminence.
Just with a hatch.
Why not?
So
let's wrap this around too.
I'm reading the frontal eminence a little bit more now. and a little bit more now.
See, so in a sense I'm still thinking of the larger he
forms, right? I'm thinking of the larger forms
of those
curves.
Not
over modeling or breaking down into planes too much.
However, when I do introduce a half tone that is what I'm
doing, right, I am finding those changes.
Within like a structure understanding of them. But look
at that side plane.
An HB, nope.
A B. There we go.
What I'm looking for here.
Then that light on the wing of the nose does come down a
little bit.
So yes, I don't know if I can get you to like this head as
much as I do.
I just would like you to know that the particular
head that was in my art school
in New York - well, I was
a student in high school
taking art classes at many different places -
the one, not exactly this head, but the one that
we had
kind of really played an important role now that I think
about it in kind of just what my artistic preferences are.
It's interesting how those things influence you
and sometimes without you - I mean, I always liked it, but
it was pointed out to me by a
teacher, instructor,
and I liked it from the start and then I mean he just explained
more and more, we talked about it and
and practiced
and just became a part of
what I am interested in
as an artist.
Look at that, getting in back to that core shadow. Just
moving it.
This is a little bit of like - it's somewhat tedious as
you can see. I'm just adding tone.
But the more tone I add, right, the lighter those right, the the lighter those
half tones become,
which is the greatest thing. So this is kind of a little bit
more sort of polished or highly rendered or however else you would
like to call this thing.
This is closer to it.
Though, I think the other ones were also kind of polished and
highly rendered
but
this particular head -
in this particular head this is happening in a much more -
in a kind of a more - like in a way that's a little
bit more commonly seen.
At this point I'd like to keep my pencil sharp, though.
Right, I need them
to make really crisp marks.
Okay, so, where are we here?
How about that shadow?
Just defining
core shadows, but also the cast shadows coming off of the
just tiny things as the lower eyelid, upper
eyelid on to the...
But then on the upper eyelid to the wonderful little core
shadow.
I'm going to allow that to kind of
fall into shadow little bit more.
Getting down along that
terminator has been
quite interesting.
Seeing how what's going on with that form.
My God this is difficult.
This is not an easy task.
But my God you learn.
Look at those wonderful cast shadows. I really I feel like
there's something interesting about this approach, right, this
approach where it's sort of coming out of the haze, out of
the fog. It really feels like sculpture somehow. You feel
like you're
just pulling this out and you're out of this general flat
area of paper.
You're creating the form as you do it.
It's quite exciting I must say.
Now that's of course a little too sharp, right?
Look at that little bit of a - that's a nice place to peasant that's a nice place to
hatch actually like to get this like curvature on the cheek.
The front plane cheek, not the side plane cheek. I don't
know how to differentiate between the two.
And, right, to really push that zygomatic down.
Okay. Okay. Okay, I'm liking what I'm seeing there that's good.
This is all still a little bit on a soft and kind of hazy
side. I don't know what to do with it yet. And yes that
happens.
I do not know what to do with it
until later. I mean if I were to just start working on it I'd
probably
kind of come up with something to do with it. But I feel like
I should just not do anything with it right now. Oh, wow
this to come together a little more organically, right? Just
you know, focus on the parts that stand out
and there are parts that stand out,
you know in my mind, right, the things that I feel like I know
how to proceed with and then everything else
we get to when we get to, right, that's the way, that that's the that's the way
that's the way to keep things interesting also.
Within the forms, right?
Work to establish what those inner forms are, right. So that
is essentially how long and how large your inner shadows are.
The core shadow inside, cast shadow inside
or kind of the reflected light where is it, right, you kind of
begin to place them and that will define the forms and
within those shadows inside of them.
When you're getting into a lighter part, right, clean that eraser
on the side of the page or on just anything.
Hmm.
Maybe it's a tiny bit too sharp.
It's going to need erasing to establish pure like the form
around it.
Right, that light on the lip, of the lip, on
the upper margin.
Mmm, excellent, nice. To get that sharpness
here. The quality of the highlight is going and the
placement of it is going to give us form.
That's going to place
everything
where we can use it, right, where we can really read that
form.
Excellent.
Still softer on this terminator, on the chin.
When it's too sharp, it's distracting.
And now though I see more angles in the shadow. This is a
little bit sort of.
So a bit more angular inside the shadow is what I'm saying,
right? We need more angles inside that shadow.
Hmm and look at that up there. Let's get that terminator on
the forehead working.
Now clearly the terminator's too sharp, right?
Which means we're going to need to extend, once again explore,
softening or sharpening some of these things from the
the half tone side.
Now do we do this right now? I don't know.
How far do we push? I have no idea.
Just a couple of hints at the form there. Not too much.
And before we move on I do want to make sure that we have
a good clean read, right? If the - the if the
on the cast shadow from the head onto the neck, right?
If the head is an egg, then the neck is cylindrical, like it's
closer to a cylinder than anything else and we need to
get a very crisp cast shadow. So even if there's some
confusion, some things going on there, there is a lower plane.
We are going to establish it.
That cast shadow has to read properly there.
Okay. So this is me just establishing that tubular form
of the neck, right, and that ellipse of the neck. Now, once
again, if you have spent time with the more anatomical parts
of this course,
then
we definitely go in depth on the ellipse of the neck. If you
haven't though, of all the heads we've done this is the best place to
get it in to get an idea of it, right, because it's so round, so
simple, so soft, that you really can see that ellipse of the
opening of the neck.
And of course it's not just this cast shadow, right and
then you could see it falling onto the shoulder. But there's
also
the sternocleidomastoid, which I mean just compare
this sternocleidomastoid to the one on the previous cast. My
God, this is hardly noticeable, right just hardly anything. I'm
not even going to - I mean I'm placing it simply to have -
we'll find a more proper placement
later on but at the moment
this is perfect. We don't need any more information.
Otherwise, it'll just get distracting. Look how soft
everything else is here. And as I said, I'm not going to go too
much
in depth with the structures of the shoulders here. Look at how
curvy those things are too, right, how curvy the for curvy. The
trapezius is, how narrow the shoulders are. it's an
incredible cast.
I'll hint at that stuff down there but not really, right.?That's
not the goal. The goal is to just keep working on this head
until
it's really
clear when you can see how we're applying all these same
principles, right? However, applying these principles while
essentially allowing the approach to evolve.
Allowing you to get a little bit more creative with sort of
what aspects of the approach you begin with, right? In the
end you realize we're all doing the
same thing.
Yeah, we're all kind of - even if you start
from,
you know,
what am I trying to say here? So what I'm trying to say, is that in
the end
you
will have to utilize all of the things in the approach that
you're already aware of. Now all that I'm
attempting to show you here
is that you can adapt the approach to have a different
starting point because there are ways to begin
that are
better for a certain model. That
might not be the best
way to begin for another and of course, I mean the idea is
that it's all okay, you could use one approach
the whole time l it'll all be fine.
But I just think being a little more intuitive, kind of adaptive,
is helpful in the long run.
Right, allows you to kind of respond more to what's in front
of you.
Then just apply your own understanding of the world,
right? You're still applying it be also hoping to evolve that
understanding.
Be open to
changes.
Okay.
Just a little bit more, as you can see I've been working on
top,
just establishing these large masses of all that
hair stuff.
So
you can see everything is laid in, it's already
far along, it's hard to really -
as you see because of the approach it's hard to really
be clear on
like an order of operations here. You saw that I started
just by being extremely hazy and pulling things out of of
things that were just very very soft, like soft-edged half tones,
and kind of getting them a bit sharper in places, pushing them
a bit more here and there to define form a little bit more. So
that is - but I think we've gotten to a point where all the
basic proportions -
though that's not to say that they can't be altered -
but the basic proportions, the general placement of
the shadows,
of all the individual parts, a nice tonal understanding of
what's going on here. All that's in place, all that's
pretty good, and I would say that everything else is now
just getting things a little bit more precise and a little bit
more refined. Let's have -
let's take a moment to not look at this while we think about
how to, you know, you could - during the break you could of
course, you know step back and take a look at it, at this from
afar. Just think about it, don't immediately act upon it,
so that we can come back with a clear head
and we'll know what to do to keep working on this. I'm not
saying we're going to complete this immediately, but I think
it's on its way. I think it's on its way. I'll see you in a
minute.

Okay, we have taken a moment to kind of step away. And
I did keep looking at this while
I was away, right, and I think I've noticed a few things
that could be easily corrected before we proceed with all the
modeling. So, let's make those corrections and keep on
going.
Now, of course, I'm going to also make the all these
corrections the whole time I'm working. So it's not as if this
is
exclusive to now.
But there's something with the axis, something with
just the particular shape of the face, which could
be something to correct
maybe with a little bit of a background.
But I have not decided this yet. All right with something
as soft as this with just these slightest changes,
just a millimeter of change
along the outer contour can make a big
effect on the character of
our model here.
Yeah, it's still I -keep in mind that I personally,
due to my education as well as due to
in a way just kind of just natural tendencies of mine as
an
artist, is to break things up into planes, which up till now
has been quite convenient
and exactly what we needed to do in our analysis and just
kind of not so much copying but really understanding what the
form
is, in terms of breaking it into planes.
Now
the trick is that here
the more we break this up into planes, of course, the better
we'll understand it
but also the harder it will be to convey
something that is integral to the character of this cast.
So the changes they're making are extremely slight, right, they're
extremely right just kind of moving and figuring out where
the center of that lip is, what's really happening with
this cast shadow from the upper lip on to the lower lip,
figuring out where that occlusion
shadow is in between the lips to make sure
everything is in its proper access. Now, I do think that
the chin is actually narrower, right, everything kind of
tapers a little bit more so
take your time here.
It will reward you to take your time. And
you just need to be
on point.
Just really see what these proportions are. So from
this point for example going to take a vertical up
and see where it ends up.
See how much that has to come in?
So let's
make sure to get this right.
Possibly from this angle even the chin itself is not just
narrower, but also higher.
Keep squinting
and then follow this line, that's been in for a major of that been in for a major
alteration, follow this line up
into the zygomatic.
I'm using a
2B, right, a relatively soft pencil for this shadows.
And of course the more I
spent time on
these specific things
the harder
it will be to then soften them to get that general soften them to get that general
impression.
The forehead's probably a little bit high. Axis, axis, axis. Axis X is X is X is
reasonable, it's reasonable.
But then just look at where this line of the hair is and
what is it going to do. I think we can bring the forehead in as
well.
Now, maybe it's important to restate our shadows, right, we
could have started with this. But I think
that the problem with starting with shadows
in that way,
in this instance, would have prevented -
would have prevented
really seeing those shadows in context with those dark half
tones coming off of them.
Now
I do think that a large part of this work that we're
going to be
doing right now -
I switched to the
the harder pencil actually, you can see
the most convenient place for me to place
the pencils that I'm working with are behind my
ear
and
when I did have curly hair, I would actually put them in my
hair.
That was a while back,
as you can see.
Now I just have
one ear on each side to hold my pencils.
Right, right away
getting just a general value
on this side of the face is good, right, because our
light's coming from the other side, meaning that everything
here should probably even if highlighted
probably be knocked back.
Which is a little bit more tonal of an
approach, but it's just a way - and there's more than one
I assume, more
than one way to handle this.
It's this particular curvature
that is so important, right? It's from here to here. Once
that turn of the form is established I think most of
the other parts will come relatively easy.
So now I have
a pencil, it's kind of the medium hardness or softness in
relation to the other two, right? It's somewhere in between.
I was using a 2B and a 2H and now this is -
no, this is still this is a 2B but B. But it's the
it's a different company so I think - so it's
or at least I think it's a little bit
harder than the other one I was using. I don't think one. I was using I don't think
the supplies really matter that much so keep it in mind right
you just need
like
I get a lot of questions
and a lot of artists I know who teach
and even those who don't, right, the main question from people
who are trying to learn from them is what are the supplies.
And I have to say and I mean as much as that is
important,
owning the right supplies
does not guarantee the same result.
But I'm sure you knew that.
It's nice to have a certain amount of them, right, that you
can
use and obviously I'll tell you about the things I'm
using because of course, it makes a difference. I'm not
saying it does not but don't
overestimate
the
the supplies,
the quality of them,
or the kind.
I'm just kind of refining some of the things we already have
and hardly anything new.
Just making sure that what I want in place is in place. The
right angles are there.
Our shadows read nice and clear, come up close if you need to
because of the softness, you're just - like obviously right we
know this from
the principles of light, right, the softer the curvature -
the
the softer the curvature,
the harder it is to see a terminator line. It's more of
just an area of core shadow.
I said I'm going to soften
the cast shadow a bit at
the end, right, what I actually learned fairly recently was
called the penumbra right, that soft
edge of the
of the cast.
It's nice to have another -
it's nice to have some extra terminology. Now I'm not
simply
working the shadow, right, I'm trying to get as much of the
half tone
coming off of the shadows that I can because I think it's very
important
to get that rolling form.
Right, this is not something we actually have
spoken that much about except maybe in some of the
geometric forms.
We haven't given - I was more concerned
with planar change.
Keep stepping back.
Here, right, we're going to run into some problems
and
they're of a tonal nature.
And by that, I mean that we are going to have to push our main
shadows
enough
so that we can have enough of the dark half tones to get
enough of that softness of the turning form.
But as you'll see,
I'm going to achieve a sort of
classic effect by doing this that I'm sure you've seen in
the work you've seen online from The Academy of Fine
Arts
in Russia.
And that is
the concentration of accents and then
a softness as you move to the edge of the form.
I can see actually that with for character the top of the
head with all that stuff is necessary. that stuff is is necessary.
So we're going to get there too,
but I'd like to get some more information in the head
first.
So I'm going to try and
an
HB pencil.
Awesome.
Do look for where the end of that zygomatic is, right, do look
for where
we can push that.
The eraser, of course,
a huge help there is lower than I initially had it and
then that crease which I guess is the obicularis
oris. Sorry, oculi. Oakley.
It's also lower.
Now
Now this little light on that crease is
bright in comparison to things around it, but I'm not
sure we need it that bright.
Hatching along the terminator
and extending out right here on the cheek. It's the most soft
area.
So spend time on this
up here. It'd be nice to lock in the eye because it does seem
large
and in fact, they're just a bunch of shadows there.
So they're kind of extending
things out further.
Then we need to reinforce our shadow little more. So this
is sort of tedious, right? This is a tedious
process, but keep in mind that when working in
pencil, in graphite, you end up
practicing these terms of forms more deliberately.
We will definitely encounter this in the future when we work
with softer media.
But with softer media you achieve this much faster
and
can kind of
do a lot of this work with just moving around the medium and
figuring out the edge of the value.
But if you're not spending the time earlier on in the
education to learn what's going on, analyze that process, then
you're going to run into some problems later. You just
won't know
how to manage some of these things. So that's why
graphite is the perfect medium
for learning I think
and that,
you know, and you find
lots of opinions on that matter
from different schools of thought
as well as
different schools.
And everyone has their own justification for
their particular methodology
and I can get behind most of it
actually.
But I do think that if this sort of more structural
approach is what you're interested in
then the control offered by
a graphite pencil
and also what it offers in terms of tonality
is possibly
unsurpassed.
Charcoal
could achieve this but it's not
what the medium wants
and I am
very interested in what the medium
is interested in.
So it's sort of an interesting
topic of conversation, really.
Because on the one hand I kind of I like
the possibility of working against the medium,
right, to use a medium in a way that in a sense doesn't
come naturally.
I think that's good. It's good practice. It's interesting to
see what possibilities are offered there.
But in order to truly achieve this
there has to be an awareness
of the medium.
Now that
does not mean that there is only like
a single way to use any given medium
and there are -
at all. I think that's not to say that you that you as an
artist need to be controlled.
And so clearly it doesn't mean that if
multiple artists are all working in the same medium
that they will achieve the same result, there are plenty of other
things that happen.
But the medium kind of - the medium
is
of prime importance,
it conveys content.
And this is of course,
these are aspects that are
even more important in contemporary art.
But regardless of what you think of contemporary art,
the advantage
of
it is that there's a lot of sort of technical information
there.
So even if you're not interested in what the results
are,
be open to learning from it.
Now I'm beginning to move into the
the back of the head a bit
and I immediately stopped doing that and moved down to the
angle of the jaw, figuring out where that is. Seems about right,
but this move
upwards
is also a part of just, right, everything kind of starts out
wide, a little bit more
angular on top and then it becomes a bit narrower as we
move down the head, also rounder, and then becomes sharp again
at
the chin.
Or sharper. So even within all of this softness,
there's variation.

I'm still interested at what's going on here because I've lost that
terminator.
Hmm yeah I have lost that terminator a little bit but They're a little bit but I'm
knocking back the chin will also help.
If we get
behind which ear, which pencil it is or if it's there at all?
Okay, so
some changes in plane, right, like this right here clearly is
already a turn we can see it as a form.
Keep stepping back, right, this plane in
the middle we know it well already, right.
And you especially know that plane if you have already spent
time with
the
course
material on the skull,
right? This is the frontal bone.
We don't want to overstate the superciliary arches.
But they're there
so let's begin to maybe slightly outline them. The key
is, right, that they're there but they can't be that bright because
they're not as protruding.
So just let's knock this all back.
And then we can use an eraser for just those little bits of
highlights.
At times a nice, long one directional hatch is quite
effective
for creating just the right amount of even flat value.
And also, you know it's kind of -
I don't mean to
to make any
kind of crude comparisons, but it does take
the take one back to the hatching technique
of
Leonardo
who does have this long one directional hatch.
And in certain instances
everything, with all this tiny little changes, is done in a one
directional hatch, just overlapped in places. And it may
be a slight alteration of angle.
But a more contemporary example in this kind of a classical of in this kind of a classical
education is a Negroni.
But from what I know
there are even some instances where he used
something
akin to a ruler
to kind of go and hatch those things.
So be became a very interesting
decorative element.
And of course those people who have studied with
with a Negroni or who
know the technique better than I might argue and I'm open to
changing my mind on that because that's simply something
that I know from
a magazine article in which he demonstrated his technique in
step-by-step photographs.
So it's not even from an analysis of his own
artwork.
Though I have to
say that I think that one could come to that
conclusion simply from that but
I'm more - yeah, it is
something that was in a photograph of him using a ruler
or something like that, a straightedge,
to establish that, those
the straight long hatch marks.
So
if there are in fact
any qualms with what I'm saying
then take it up with that magazine which was published
about 45 if not more years ago.
It's what I got.
Either way, I think the stuff is cool.
It's interesting work.
Especially his drawings
since we're not afraid to be a
tiny bit more opinionated.
I personally am not as big a fan of his paintings.
But, you know, that's just my personal preference
for something
done slightly differently, even though I do admire his
imitation of
the proto-Renaissance artists often like, Piero, who
I think he was lucky yet.
Piero Della Francesca is who I mean.
So that of course also
maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.
Enough about Negroni though.
I feel like I've gone on too long about him.
Either way, if you don't know his work do check it out. It is
kind of cool.
And I think it would just end this to, just you know, we did
kind of take a look that is working in the academy. So
the fact that I bring it up is not entirely
random, right, it's at least somewhat three at least somewhat
apropos.
Now I'm just going to start getting into these curves,
these curly things, the hair, a little bit, right, use them. Even
if they're a little off center line use them to find
center lines.
At times be organic, but also
don't hesitate to break this all up into angles a
little bit more if that helps with clarity.
I'm still not sure how much we're going to
devote to these things.
Because the amount of tone in the area will
also in a sense dictate the amount of information right if
we're already hesitant to put a darker value up here.
Oh, look at this line, follow this line of that ear, which is
wrapped. Marvelous, a
beautiful thing. Follow that ear, follow that curve, right?
Follow that larger -t's not even a diagonal
because it doesn't lead anywhere.
It's just this sort of continuation,
right? So it's these gestural lines in the face, right, the
plastic element,
not the material obviously, but we've spoken a little bit
about
plastic qualities as they refer to them
in Russian.
The ear is higher.
If I just take a horizontal from the ear, should hit about here
on the nose. Whoa, look at that. Insanely wrong.
Good thing I caught that now
That would have been annoying later.
Right that changes everything, it changes this whole movement.
Isn't that great,
when we can
spot that earlier
rather than later.
I'm thinking that maybe there's a chance right to achieve what
I want to achieve. Most of
the half tones in the light side here
will be almost non-existent.
A tiny bit of a hatch there won't hurt of course.
But for the most part, I don't want to overstate it.
Let's say for now that's almost it. Now
let's see where the corner of the mouth is. I think I've
pushed it out a little bit too much. Let's bring it in.
So see so I'm just getting back to some of these things.
Things here are require a little bit,
fairly large amount of
precision.
Hm.
Just needed to correct that, it's too sharp.
Keep stepping back
so you're seeing the whole thing as much as possible and I'm back
here, right? That's the thing. You always find you definitely
see that happening when working
on projects, right, there's kind of
this one area that you're going to keep coming back to over and
over again. It might sort of seem insignificant but it will
be as though it just doesn't come together. That's the thing,
right, it'll just -
you get other parts completed in no time.
Parts that should maybe even just like intuitively you'd
think they'd be harder.
Eyes, for example,
but all I think that means is that they're not the focal
point. They're not that important.
Even some some sort of areas of intricate anatomy
you spend all that time on, you won't spend that much time on,
you think you're going to, you think that's the idea, but
then there's something else which will just not give you
any peace.
Because that
is where
it'll all come down.
That will be
what you really need
to get what you want to get from this.
And in my case, it's that terminator on the side of the face,
which until I
have I kind of won't leave it alone.
Or rather just that curvature, not even so much the terminator.
Its placement is important too.
So it'll keep getting sharper and softer and sharper again as
I work
to get it right.
The interesting thing, right, is that it'll kind of be
unexpected.
That's what I'm trying to get at. This is not the part you
think
is the goal.
But it becomes that.
I think once that's in place,
everything else would be - at least I think - would be a lot easier.
I was about to say piece of cake, but
I'm not going to get ahead of myself there.
Right, that proper line.
of the plane of the mandible underneath might also be
sort of as important.
Okay take a break from face just a little bit.
Maybe it'll even be a fun exercise to keep everything up
top structural.
Right the point of this is education. So
my goal is to do as much as I need
for you
to learn the
the largest amount.
And that doesn't always entail
a certain kind of polish at times. kind of polish at times. It's
It might lead me to stop something just a little bit
earlier than maybe I would have in my own studio or something
like that, right?
It also entails the opposite, that at times I will
I will work to complete an area or just the head in general
maybe even a bit more than I would
in my own studio because
here, I'm sort of going off of
the most that I can offer
with a given assignment.
And that doesn't always entail
the same amount and the kind of
execution.
That might be
what I'm interested in as an artist right as when completing
a
a more kind of a
more personal piece. Even if this personal piece was the
same head. Just keep that in mind.
We'll keep going over that stuff as much as we can. But
look at how high this is.
Okay, I think we're a little bit closer. I think we're
definitely a little bit closer than we were.
Let's take a moment because I'm feeling my eye is becoming a
little bit...
Right before I do that though I do want to check a proportion.
Seems fine.
The fact that I lost that corner, yeah, I wanted to take
a break and I am going to because come back to this with a
clear head.
So
I'll see you in a moment.

And we're back. Let's keep working on the head as a whole,
let's step away from working on any of the specific details
for the moment and
see if the general relationships can general relationships can
actually lead us back into the specifics.
Okay.
Alright, so this in a sense, you know,
I'm just contradicting myself, it seems as if I'm
contradicting myself,
but I'm not actually because
I'm worried about just in general
this larger form. Now
this is a little, abrupt, right all those things are softer
but as a value, I'm kind of okay with it.
I did mention earlier I need that small light, once again seems
like a small detail, but plays a role in the larger
aspects of this head. Now what I'm going to do though is
actually hatch in the same direction with the eraser. I
think that's effective.
And I'm going to leave it because
I did say we're going to work up here.
Right and just spend some time here.
Actually, if you really want to know, the hair of casts -and you
can clearly see, right, this hair is not the same as the hair in
the
the previous
cast, the one that was taken from a
model,
in that this hair is designed by the sculptor.
You saw that in the other cast you could hardly even -
you couldn't even tell it was hair or not. Right if it was a
cap. It could have been any of that, right? So here the artist
had to create actual sort of an ornament out of
the hair, out of the sort of the pieces
of
the sort of the clothing of the head I guess. It's a kind of
like a shawl of some sort that that wraps around the back of
the head.
The key here though is to not overstate the values. And also
if you're not a hundred percent accurate with this,
it's forgivable, you know.
Though you can argue that it's not because in a
perfectly composed
a sculpture, painting every single part is
contributing to the whole. So if you just get one line wrong,
the whole thing falls apart, you can make that argument and
I do like that argument. I'm not sure for educational
purposes that is necessary right now.
So what I'm saying is right, so just
get as much here
as possible, as much
information.
Without overstating it, right, without allowing it to take
over. So some of these things that wrap are nice because it
gives you more hint at a forum. So the hair on casts,
right, on casts that are
are planned by a sculptor
working on the hair is actually great practice for just sort of
understanding abstract areas,
planes and and the changes in light and shadow and all that
stuff. Really helpful.
Highly recommended and I honestly recommend it
for
the practice of cloth,
right? It's sort of the equivalent of the
kind of thinking that needs to go into into cloth, but we're
going to see more of that when we get into cloth.
So I'm still, right, everything is a little bit angular.
Here I'm going to get real close
and
kind of just move out into the darker half tones
from the shadow, right, just softening that a little bit.
Now look at that little cast shadow falling on the hair and
then on the head, right the key with hair is to establish cast
shadow against core shadow, which means the one form
against the other.
Good.
I would actually if you were to spend a lot of time on
this, I would probably
advise gradually working up into the -
from the shadows into the lights and all that stuff
by way of the dark half tones, but
I'm just going to knock it back and use an eraser
to carve.
As you've noticed working without the eraser
is interesting from an educational standpoint,
but in some ways impractical because it's not fast enough.
And you'll see that I'm interested in the speed.
And you'll be seeing this more and more as we work on larger
and more complex assignments, speed is necessary. This this speed is necessary. This
does not mean that you need to
kind of speed things up past what you're able to do it at a
given moment in time in your
your technique and your abilities. That is not what I'm
saying. Just just keep in mind that
it's hard to say, right, because on the one hand I don't want
you to sort of force yourself to speed up because I think
that could be detrimental but the other
it's something to think about. And I often, I think that if
you're thinking about a thing, then you're kind of halfway
there, like the progress towards that
will begin to happen in a sense on its own I think to
some degree.
All right. There we go with the the back of the head, all these
swervy curly things.
Yeah.
Try not to overdo them, trying to get them into a general
value and then using an eraser probably to kind of clean up
that edge and then defining that edge with
a value or a line or something. Right? So now I'm just going to
clean that up.
And we'll keep that as is for the moment
and move up to other parts
like
these particular curls.
So if this is a little tedious,
just bear with me.
As you see we're moving along pretty fast.
What is happening up here?
I'm not even doing that precise, right? There's some
sort of shape it's caused by this role here and it's
casting that shadow.
Whatever.
Now my teachers would probably kill me for that, whatever, but
I don't actually think it's unimportant.
It is something to take time out and learn and
explore a little bit more.
The eraser is important here. We're going to hatch into this
to kind of integrate it.
The thing that I'm also trying to show
is in some ways
it's going back to what I was talking about the medium,
right, the way that I'm using the medium up top here
is not the way that I really used it too much up to this
point, right, I'm not using it like -
I'm using it like a softer medium, I'm using it like
a charcoal or maybe Conte. I'm kind of placing a tone, rubbing
it in, and carving out. So
you can see that
the graphite like itself, right, it has -
you can work with it in multiple ways.
So I like to be able to kind of show that here on top a little
bit. So I'm still sticking to
the sort of the more
kind of understood, right, approach of just analysis, slow
building up of tone. So
this is interesting because the argument would be is that in
that I've seen
whole schools
they teach a similar kind of application, maybe a bit slower,
but a similar kind of application,
slow building up of tone with
I wouldn't call it a hatch, but at least just a certain kind
of
mark making on the surface of the paper
in the something like
charcoal, charcoal.
which to me
is just a little bit more connected with how one should
use the graphite. And of course, I don't think there's actually
a right or wrong and there are sort of historical precedents
for both of those approaches. It's not one or the other.
It's just what you're used to and what you're sort of accustomed
to based on your education.
Explore all of them. That's kind of advantage of New
Masters, that there's a lot of different approaches on here.
Huh?
I move back.
Just going to see - see I've already done all this but I'm
going to see how much I have on top and how much on bottom.
From the chin to the brow moving up it's almost
exactly half. Let's see how wrong or right - oh look at that.
Yeah. Okay, I'm wrong.
So I'm going to bring this to here, bring it up higher.
Why not?
But then just how high
is this point?
Interesting.
Is that as wrong as I think it is?
So from here to here.
Yes, it is. So the forehead's even higher. We spoke about this,
right,
the hair was often plucked up there right
so that the forehead would be higher, but look at that. I'm higher, but look at that. I'm
not sure I need to change much else.
A lot of times you change the easier that you think and
I'm kind of getting a -being a little bit more loose up there
because I don't think it's
really that hard to clean that up.
I'm more concerned with just the general sort of softness
that I'm seeing.
Okay. So before we move on I'm going to readdress maybe some
of these larger concerns, right?
How much can we - how much can we turn this head with just
this, right, sort of not working directly out of the
terminator but just in general
I'm making sure that that whole area is a darker value, right,
just to get more of that large curvature.
Clearly this is a problem.
This is not enough information.
I think
we'll get there relatively soon.
What's important now is to just lock in this head with that
cast shadow.
And I know I said I'm not going to do too much
underneath
but the neck is too long.
Okay, I'm sort of liking what I'm seeing, we're getting more saying I'm we're getting more
of this general egg shape sort of roundness.
Squint and just knock this whole eye back I think.
Good.
Now you ask maybe we should have started with that and I
don't know.
There are times when you need to build up to something that
slowly to make sure
that you're analyzing it, right? I think starting out - in
some cases yes, you can start out with just knocking back the
eye socket. I think it's fine. In others you need to be a
little bit more careful to take your time. Can I really explain
in which case you have to do it?
Maybe not, not that precisely.
Trust your
intuition a little bit,
right, there times when certain things would be easier if I had
started this in a maybe a slightly different way,
maybe then.
I don't know how right I am about that.

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In this assignment, using the images and 3D scans provided
with this course, you're going to be working on this proto-
Renaissance cast head. Now this was the final assignment
in our edition of cast drawing. The thing to remember and the
real challenge here is how we no longer have very clear change of
plane.
They existed in the parts of the head, they were in the
previous cast,
and your job was to emphasize them. Here your job is to get as
soft a movement around a form, as close to an egg as that's close to an egg as
possible.
This is really a challenge, but I'm sure you can do it.
Good luck.