- Lesson Details
- Transcript
- References
- Instructor
- Iliya Mirochnik
- Subjects
- Drawing
- Topics
- Composition, Design, Hands, Head & Portrait, Human Figure
- Mediums
- Chalk, Colored Pencil
- Duration
- 10h 42m 7s
- Series
- Russian Drawing Course 4: The Human Figure
You’ve arrived at a pivotal moment in your curriculum.
This project is the culmination of everything you’ve learned in the previous portions of this course. Approach it with a confident and newfound understanding of anatomy, a keen eye for form, and mark-making proficiency.
Join Iliya in this execution of a long multi-figure composition from life. With the addition of another figure, elements of composition and narrative come into play.
Ukrainian-born artist Iliya Mirochnik passes on a 250-year-old academic method preserved at the Repin Academy in Saint Petersburg, Russia and seldom taught outside of the Academy and never before on camera.
The Russian Academic drawing and painting approaches were uninterrupted by the modern art movements that transformed representational art in the West, and as a result, they provide a unique and clear lineage to the greater art traditions of the past. As a powerful approach that is both constructive and depictive, it combines the two methods that prevail in contemporary representational art.
In this course, we have set out to condense the entire program, spanning over eight years into a logical, step-by-step procedure. We have made improvements and added resources and exercises to explicitly drive home the concepts that are required to work in this approach.
We have also structured the course so that it is not only useful for professional and experienced artists but also artists with no drawing experience whatsoever.
The New Masters Academy Coaching Program directly supports this Course. If you enroll in the coaching program, you can request an artist trained in the Russian Academic Method including Iliya Mirochnik himself. Click here to enroll in the Coaching Program.
Materials
- Conte Pencils – Sanguine
- Conte stick – Sanguine
- Kneaded and Hard Erasers
- Sanding Block
- Utility Knife
- Roll of Paper or Smooth Sketchbook paper
- Easel
Used in video:
- Cretacolor Art Chunky – Sanguine Light
- Conte Pencils – Sanguine
- Stretched Drawing Paper – 36 inch (91.5cm) x 48 inch (122cm)
Discuss this video in the forums!
Discussthis course,
the multi figurative
assignment. So everything up until this point was either a
single object or a single model on a single piece of paper. But
now we're going to make this a little bit harder
and we're going to put two models on the stage in front of
us, but also on a single piece of paper which
requires a larger amount of
of composing and it's not entirely about execution
at this point. It's more about managing the entire paper
as a whole. The other interesting thing that we're
going to experience here is that I'm going to be working on
an extremely large piece of paper that's been prepared in
in the same way that I
demonstrated earlier, but by stretching paper onto onto a
board and this is -
all of that except on much
larger scale.
With that let's begin.
After you.
And yeah, and you can put your robes on that chair actually,
yes.
Okay. So yeah, that's the idea.
Awesome,
I think though
the yeah, that's perfect Amy. John I think if
we could just move this up slightly so we can to take
everything and move it in a little bit
like that way. - yeah, and then we can move everything. Yes.
Excellent.
How's that from this angle?
I have a feeling that there might have been a little bit
more overlap, but I'm okay with this actually.
Amy could you actually scoot a little closer
to me so that there's -
yeah, okay. Yeah, I think that's a good place
to begin. All right.
So this is in fact intimidating, but I think we'll
be
all right with it. So obviously if you're following
along at home, I don't necessarily expect you to have
paper as
large as the one that I have. I would actually advise
the proportions of this paper, but
take your time and just use something that you're
comfortable working on. Maybe push the
comfort just a tiny bit, but not necessarily to the point
that I have here. The important thing here is that we're
composing. So take your time to really think about the
placement
before you even make a mark.
This is extremely important and keep in mind that the exact
placement isn't necessary to copy. It's more about like so
for example from my angle I'm not necessarily seeing as
many overlaps as maybe I could have on the paper
itself, but
with that, let's see what we can do.
So do establish where
the top is by where the highest
point keep in mind everything of
course is subject to change.
And kind of just
lay something out
to just figure out where where we are.
So this as an assignment is left pretty much up until the
end of
your education at the Academy of Fine Arts.
Obviously because
it's the one assignment where you're taking everything and
you're putting it into practice, you're thinking more in terms
of how you're composing everything.
It's not exclusively anatomy and proportion and all this
it's more about relationship. It's more -it's
always been about relationship but now it's really about relationship.
So you can be quite abstract at the beginning, kind of
establish some general structures
We'll get to the
specifics when we get to them.
But also, right, keep in mind avoid getting caught up in any
details, think of the environment. So for example,
this, the couch or whatnot, right, establish that as a plane
on which
we have
a person.
So it's not just the
people floating on the page, right? It's
within some sort of architectural context.
And the key here, right, is to step as far back as you can simply
to get an idea of how
large everything is on the page. Now this is what I was
talking about. I personally I like the potential for this
overlap. So in reality
Jonathan is here
and maybe
that's interesting so that if I get wrong is a
big problem. So it would be interesting to see how that
looks. On the one hand this overlap will give us a little
bit like equal space on both sides of the paper
but on the other hand, it gives us an interesting overlap. At
the same time
if we move everything right and kind of figure out what this
shape is, maybe enhance that cast shadow, that's a way to
connect them. And then we bring this up and have a little bit
closer to the side of the page. Maybe that's more interesting.
AndI do think so and then we can introduce a little
bit of a
background here.
So if it looks a little bit absurd to you at the moment,
I agree.
It is sort of
a bit little bit strange. So just kind of follow along in
line. See the problem also is in the - maybe the advantage that
if you're working as large as this
a lot of the times you can't even see everything in front of
you. So you have to work a little bit more from
imagination, remember where placement is right?
Kind of take some lines across.
But we're interested in creating as much of an
atmosphere here as possible.
That wonderful profile, the head there. How large is that? Seems
reasonable. It seems reasonable. This is clearly a
bit lower which is good because I can imagine
where the feet are even if we can't see them.
The pose is pretty much contrapposto, right? So begin
to imagine where the pelvis is, what tilt may be that what tilt may be
exaggerated a little bit, see what's going on there.
So yeah, I'm not actually I'm kind of just I'm working off of
what I see in front of me. I'm pushing it beyond that
point right? I'm not actually overlapping anything
because I like
the placement on the page. The the placement on the page. The
composition is kind of tight. I'm not incorporating a
lot of - there isn't that much of a background. But I think that
what we have is enough of a challenge.
So
remember the rule, right, that
you can't get proportions or real placement without shadows.
So begin to get just a general atmosphere. I'm keeping things
very very very abstract.
Alignments. Use the eraser a lot.
And if you're working as large or even
half as large, then definitely move around.
We're going to spend some time getting things in place.
Your center line, right, always there.
The curvature of everything something tells me that there's
some proportional things going on here that are
strange, which is a natural occurrence when working large.
So I'm going to move this leg down which I think is
preferable for the
size of the paper and how much room we have towards
the bottom.
I am -
there's always going to be some proportional issue that comes
up
a lot later in the game than I would prefer.
And then changing that is a real hassle, but we're going to
have to do it if we find it and I promise I'll find it.
Alright, okay. Okay, okay.
This is a very active process because you can't
see everything as you move. So
if this teaches you anything is to move around as much as
possible.
So you begin to realize how
kind of insignificant those small proportional issues and
anatomical issues that you had
actually are when you are thinking about just
the interaction of
kind of at this point just abstractions on paper at the
scale that we have them here and also thinking about
proportion at the same time. And of course we're going to
spend time on the knees and all that stuff.
But we have time for that.
That seems interesting.
So there is definitely sort of a painterly application of
the media which we definitely have encountered
both in the portrait with hands and in the -
and basically all of the stuff that we did in
the softer media.
I'm working with this large piece of chalk at the moment.
Okay, I think something's appearing out of the haze a
little bit. But now I'm going to enlarge this cast shadow
actually.
Because it'll tie things together a little bit
more.
All right, let's keep going.
Just some general angles,
the head to the shoulder by just kind of how these things
are interacting afterwards. We're going to get - we're going
to be sort of thinking about some larger movements and we're going
to accent some of this will get - the
this is interesting
working on something as
intense as this definitely as sort of involved as this
definitely puts me back to the academy and
if this was even more intimidating at the time
because I hadn't done anything of the kind.
So I'm just I want to be careful with the amount of
background that I have. I already think it's maybe more
than I need and so it'll end up requiring me to extend it, so
I'm just gonna lighten it up a little bit.
But maybe it's okay.
We'll see it when we arrive at it. Okay, so
let's figure out where the rib cage is, figure out where the spine
is,
the scapula. All that stuff that that we covered is now just
one tiny part of the big picture.
Mmm-hmm,
excellent, and then just kind of take your eye across, that's
what the elbow is. So you're thinking kind of abstractly.
You're just comparing
just an optical proportion, right, the elbow
here to the head here, right? They're not even
on the same person.
Okay.
Right now I feel like maybe going back into this sort of
very broad
tonal application
in a way that's
basically just using more line
can help establish some of these things in space.
Right, that's a hand.
Center line, find where the clavicles are, move them across.
Just the general placement of shadows on the head.
Erase
in a way that establishes contour and plane,
don't ever erase to correct, right,
at this point you're well aware of that.
And just getting more specific. I'm already feeling a little
bit more comfortable
with everything, just figuring out where that central line is.
The knees.
Not so sure there's a cast shadowthere, but it of there, but it'll it
definitely won't hurt.
And the other leg.
Don't worry about the other arm at the moment.
Obviously when working as close as this as early as this the
proportions might be wrong, but as you're well aware,
you need them wrong in order to then correct them, right, you need
to have something on the page
to then go back into and correct.
Awesome.
Yeah.
Okay, so that's a little bit more specific, even more than
before right? Keep in mind this is just the first 20. First
20 minutes. So
just take your time.
Neck is longer.
The ankle seems to be probably narrower and the foot is
smaller I'm pretty sure. I'm not even
taking proportional measurements really, not yet.
Hint at some bit of the plane, but we'll probably be
changing that a lot.
Head is a little bit larger. All right, let's move on to
to Jonathan. But we need to see if we can spot
the ribcage,
the oblique, but do look at where the asis is here right,
this is on its own pretty much at the same point
as the asis on Jonathan's pretty much the same point as
the acromion on Amy.
That's kind of a good structural moment.
It works both proportionally, it helps with certain alignments.
Allow this to move from there.
The other thing of course is I'm going to start thinking
about this right away, but already begin to
consider the edge.
I'm actually not so sure about this. Just going to move
everything over.
And that's the first 20.
Awesome. I think a lot has been accomplished, strangely enough.
I like the placement. I'm going to keep working at this in the
break.
I like the placement. I'm just going to try to remember where
things are. Right, so I did say the acromion is here,
so I can construct the rest of the pelvis from imagination.
Right, the shoulders,
we'll figure out all that later.
And I don't know where that other leg or where we
can put it but we'll figure that out. Okay, so the
interesting thing here is the head, right, if we're following with
the spine is we can estimate now. The interesting thing about the interesting thing about
doing it in this way that it forces you to think
proportionally
to what you already have, right, to just remember and ask
yourself how would I place the head
just according to what I already have.
And maybe you can recall a line,
right, if that's the tilt of the of the pelvis, that's the tilt
of the shoulders, and pretty much a contra -
pretty much a contrapposto.
So enhance that here and see where it takes you.
Figuring out where the top plane of the
couch or the whatever that is - that bench -
is helpful, obviously we'll soften it later.
So yeah, so this kind of working for imagination of this
early point is very helpful.
Okay, okay, okay.
There's only so much you can do as early without information,
but you could sort of compose, right, so you can
kind of think in terms of environment. So I'm just going
to extend this -
extend this a bit.
Probably, right, enhance that tilt with the hamstring group.
That's probably wrong. It looks wrong.
But I'm okay like at least like even right now it's just a
matter of exploring
in whichever way we can
the placement on the page.
Also, you're composing large areas of flat
tone to signify where the plane of the ground is, the plane
of the floor, the plane of the bench,
all of that.
This arm is going to be interesting and we don't
necessarily need it to be so symmetrical, but we'll figure
that out.
Okay. Yeah, I'm going to -
I need to take a look from afar.
See what's happening here. I'm okay with this.
There's kind of like a certain amount of atmosphere. I think
because of how close I am to where the models are, I'm
ending up kind of maybe over exaggerating that perspective.
Which maybe is good. I don't know, I can't decide yet. It's
too early.
I'm really exaggerating this perspective on the -
like where even is this?
It's up to me to figure out where to end, it probably ends a
bit more to the left. It's a hard one, right, but I most
likely want to take it past here.
Right but that's sort of a nice cut across the page. Yeah, this
is the hard part. The hard part also is that now I'm running
into
a few tonal problems. Right? Simply because I'm working just
a couple - I'm working in just the white of the paper pretty
much and then some sort of that I've established for both
background and shadow, right? So I'm just composing the
shape of the light and then the shape of the shadow, which is
definitely going to keep changing a lot as we go on.
If I'm not mistaken, I heard our
model's alarm.
So we'll see where that goes.
My interest here is to maybe establish all the tonality
without the detail as soon as possible.
So that's something we haven't really explored that much but
here it's instrumental.
Welcome back in.
So the key is right to figure out where we have our main
contrasts, where we have - and also where we have our just and also where we have our just
the lightest half tones and then the the darker half tones
then the shadows. All right, get all the values down kind of
as a just an abstraction without really thinking too
much
in terms of
accuracy of you know of line, anatomy, blah, blah. I think I
kind of already strangely enough have enough of that.
Jonathan I think you were turned away from me just a bit
more.
Hmm. Excellent. Thank you.
Amy, yeah, I think
your foot was just was a little - at the moment this it not at the moment. This
isn't the biggest issue, right? So, yeah, but
okay.
So let's get a general placement of
what the values are right? It's clear that with our light this
right here
is where our light is the strongest and that is
definitely to our advantage. So everything moving away from
this is going to get a little bit toned down everything going
both up and down across and so on so well, why don't we
start with that a little bit right? Let me just get a
general
a tone in these places, see that already helps establish a
little bit of atmosphere. That's nice.
Hmm,
I'm gonna switch my eraser.
Right just kind of placing that highlight, not really
overthinking it.
I'm probably going to end up adding another color,
slightly darker brown or something of the kind.
So but then here we really got a strong light on the thigh.
I'm going to get that almost as wide as the page.
And then that value can kind of remain.
I think though there's the one thing that I'm now getting
is
Jonathan I think you were a little bit closer that way like
just if you step an inch or something because there was a
shadow.
Awesome. Okay. Yeah, that is good. I think.
And it's honestly only early on that I care as much
about a few things and then later on those won't matter,
but some other ones my matter, so I'll just let you know.
So there is a shadow on the lower part of the abdomen a
little bit. So we'll get that as well. But without spending
too much time on it.
I like this strong cast shadow from the
elbow onto the gluteus
in the back
and then sort of getting the armpit from the back, right,
to lock in
the
scapula.
And already that's creating a little bit more interest
on the page. A lot of cool stuff going on here.
awesome
I'm going to move up a little bit. I was kind of right about
the neck. I think it's a little bit
more upright in the back, but I was right about the larynx in
the front, that's the general direction.
And let's figure out what the
shadow on the mandible
is and where it is right in order to just have that happen.
There's a general tilt.
The head is tilted back slightly more than I had. So
which means the cranium comes up, right? So
but in a sense it's easier to place on the page then if I
hadn't done anything during the break.
We got all that little more specific as we go.
Excellent. I'm liking what I'm seeing
right there.
Kind of hint at some of these shadows they don't need to be
that dark, right? Because we need to combine with
this kind of imagined or rather enhanced cast dhadow onto
Jonathan's leg.
That will probably have a shape a little more interesting than
what I just did but we'll see where it goes.
Okay in general I like what's happening over there.
I do think though
this is an interesting area to get into a slightly darker
value.
Clearly, right if I use a soft chalk then
I need to kind of integrate it into the surface
of the paper. Otherwise
it has too much of a texture.
Right. This does look a little absurd right now and incomplete
and that's totally fine.
All right, that's kind of a value I'm okay with there,
Okay so let's see what these values are
here.
In general though I'm curious how much of this will matter. I
have a decided but just the local color of the skin
is different on Amy than it is on Jonathan. So that that is on Jonathan. So that
needs to be
considered maybe
or just up to a point, you know, it can't be
overstated. I think because we are in fact not worried that
much about local color.
So let's just knock everything back as much as we can for now
right?
Using maybe some of these areas of the
negative
space around the ribcage to get some of
this in order.
Right to place to place the rib cage, to get some information
there.
I'm just unifying some of these core shadows and background.
We will separate them later if we need to. The hard part about
the torso here is that it is especially for as close as I
am it is foreshortened. So these axes are going to
matter.
Squint and look at how dark the upper arm is compared to the
lower.
Obviously not only done in highlight but highlight could
achieve a lot.
And then what is happening with the
asus on one side and the asus on the other, right,
just define where the pelvis is.
The head too I would say should not catch as much light as the
shoulders
and the chest I think.
Okay, so things are still pretty rough, but I'm
liking the direction it's taking.
Sure, I will
see something that is just awfully wrong soon.
I'm using the eraser to just almost just working line, right,
to find those lines.
I'm going to place shadows on the
neck and head as soon as I can but I think those
establish proportions and I've been thinking of this already
but maybe with change, the tilt of the head at some point which
will require a lot of erasing but it's worth it if
all changes if you decide.
they're good to do, if they improve
the piece.
Okay.
Now this is of course a little incomplete right? But I know
that, it's just a bit too high up at the moment for me to reach
so nothing to worry about.
Let's figure out what's happening with some of these
shadows
on the leg, the leg is requires and it may be exaggerated
curvature on top because
it's foreshortened, right, and all of our curvatures
they seem more curvy
on things that are foreshortened.
So I need to knock this all the way,
knock it back a bit.
Find it in terms of shadow from one side, maybe the other,
right, kind of get a little more environment in there. I'm
thinking more totally.
The knee, right, into the knee cap we can see the lateral
condyle
of everything actually both tibia and the femur as well.
Now this right here cast shadow under the couch.
That's a good amount of placements helping.
Just
getting some important alignments there,
clavicles, the sternum,
and
this cast shadow falling from the pectoralis under the
breast.
Exactly there I don't know but
I'll figure that out later.
Okay, so the shoulders
on Amy actually a bit wider
in a way that's proportionally more accurate and
compositionally
more interesting. I mean, I wouldn't even see this one. I
like that happening right there, right? I like that
movement inwards of the arm. We'll see where that goes.
I can't decide now.
Right the key is to just stick to just figuring out proportions
and moving stuff around until you're, you know, pretty much
satisfied. Like in this case
it's much more important to have this in place because
without it you
will get lost.
Because of the proportions around here and you go into it and
decide to
complete parts, then you have to kind of keep it and make
sure to make adjustments of everywhere else. Now that's
inevitable in a lot of ways, but at least we can try to
minimize this a little bit.
Lights,
knocking that back a little bit, right? I'm sort of thinking in
larger values now again, maybe even structuring a plane here
and there.
Maybe
I don't know.
If you notice I don't know a lot at this point.
And that's a good place to be I think.
Huh? All right.
So I haven't switched to another medium as of yet.
This hand we will do what we can and
just let's make sure
there's some information there. Think of it as absolute
abstract.
The other hand I don't know about yet either.
But I'm definitely getting a feeling of
an environment. Like I'm beginning to get a feeling of
something that's up close, even though this knee definitely
needs to be pushed out and something further to this and something for their
back.
Which we're going to be thinking about more and more
right? So that knee possibly needs to be even stronger of a
contrast.
I don't even know what this is yet, but at least is a
contrast.
And then
right that cast shadows define form of the lower leg.
This whole top part right? Maybe I could just knock back
but the light on this knee made stronger.
Kind of bring that armpit in there. Okay, so here
I'm a little bit more -
I'm actually going to start getting a little bit more
specific, you can see that just by getting the shadows in
place I can see that cast shadow on the
the infraspinatus. I can see these shadows in the armpit and
the deltoid.
We can maybe begin to get some sort of light
on the acromion, the -
can I see
the spine of the scapula right there. I think I can. You can
see the clavicle even right there,
sternocleidomastoid.
Bring it down to here.
Maybe even get a little bit more of something sharper.
I gotta smear that a little bit.
Good. Now
there's a roundness here, the roundness of the trapezius and
the
levator scapulae. You can see the trapezius here even with the -
I mean, I guess it's not necessarily trapezius it could
be this, the other muscles in the back of the neck the
splenius capitis, all those,
right? So I'm already thinking in anatomy a little bit more.
All right. Now the other scapula probably
I will show more in line than anything else.
And I'm going to invent
that cast shadow,
right, because it establishes - I mean it's there
but I like where I placed it'll probably change but at the
moment it's fine.
You can see the ridge, the medial
border there of the scapula. Make sure not to make it too
bright and in general knock it back.
We'll go into all that with with pencil closer to
when we - when we're modeling.
Arm is there but clearly where is
the elbow.
The contrast on the elbow might make it seem as though
it's much lighter than it is.
Still only working
in
this piece of chalk, right?
Find where the back is a little bit more but at the same time
probably needs to come in down to here. Right? So be open
to changes in the back like that arm is there but ignore it
for now.
Just outline certain things.
This is hard.
And that's a break that I'm going to take as well.
So
that was two 20s
and I think a lot of -
a lot has happened on the page so I'm going to take a break
because I need to just step away from this before
coming back and then asking myself all the same questions.
What's happening with the with the proportions? Where have I
gone wrong? See you soon.
over. I know where to go from here. I've washed my hands. And
let's get started. Our models are back.
I will yes.
Okay, so I like where I left off. I'm not going to really
move too far from this area at the moment. Just going to kind
of go and explore what's going on the abdomen and the hip.
Going to keep these swirly lines here. They are giving me
a clear placement of the back. Also do watch out for changes,
right? Like something might just
slightly changed in a way that's really good. This
is looking good.
I do I still think Jonathan you just step ahead just Did you just step ahead just
like a tiny amount. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, that's pretty
much it.
A lot of it's kind of invented in terms of that shadow. Okay,
so
but this shadow that I placed and did not
really actually observe is now something that I can observe so that's
interesting to think about how just experience
and imagination can
lead you in the right direction. So
just carefully see where the pectoralis is, where it ends.
The abdomen.
Right, the important thing here though is that you're always
comparing you don't stay in one spot for too long and we did experience
this when
working on the cast everything else honestly, but here this is
even more important. Like so if you're working here keep your
eye elsewhere and then
invert that when you whenever you get a chance. This is
extremely important that you're thinking of the entirety of the
paper and the relationship
at all times.
So in the academy when I was at school this at times this assignment
was accompanied with some with some sort of of a some sort of an end some
narrative.
It could have been biblical or mythological. They definitely
explored that hundreds of years ago, but
they even had that when I was in school, so the interesting
thing about this is that I always thought that having a very
concrete
narrative is actually not that interesting. It's always
somewhat arbitrary. So I'm okay with there not being any
kind of
particular interaction here. At the same time I think the
poses
and just the
gesture, the movement itself can contribute to some degree
of narrative. So even here what the interesting idea and why I
sort of I
stopped at these particular poses is that there's an
interesting contrast between these sort of angular movements
here and this very upright
vertical placement along this edge. So it's working
in connection to the outside of the paper,
which is always important when you're composing but it's also -
there's also just a constant contrast
inside the image.
So as you see I'm a little bit calmer now, I'm just getting
some information, right, so the obliques.
Not overstating things. Maybe even simplifying a bit.
But now we're here, right, the trochanter is really bright.
Trochanter and the tensor.
That is what I'm going to make as light as possible.
And I'm going to tone down the gluteus medius.
And that's clearly way too dark.
Right and we're getting a stronger light on the vastus
lateralis.
At the same time knocking at all
back just enough
so that we can model, right?
I'm even gonna kind of do these large weird hatch marks with
the eraser
just for placement. Obviously, that's not
the proper academic refinement that we're looking for.
Just the shape of the light on the gluteus.
Making corrections as we go.
Find the arm in there.
Find the gluteal cleft,
the other gluteus. And once again, we'll see what to do
with that other leg.
Within the
shadow established those forms.
When working in this amount of
the charcoal you end up
coughing it up after class.
Or after you spend that time
in the studio. So I'm expecting that to happen.
I like how this is now combined a little bit more. I'm going to
show that leg but keep in mind that - I'm going to
keep in mind that I'm going to probably get rid of that line
later. But for now I want it because if I just omit that
line then I might get lost a little bit. I'll lose some
proportions and stuff. Let's see so that's already quite
defined. There's really a lot of information here. What's
going on with this area, I don't know. It's actually
compositionally extremely problematic
because it's - everything is too parallel. I like that it's
close to the edge and there's something that we can find some
variation in this and even some in terms of line, in terms
of tone. But right now that's causing some problems. Now, I do
need to just do a little bit of work with the head.
Just a little bit of work with the head.
I just want to establish that tilt.
When something is as large as this you end up using a step
ladder.
Right kind of like push that
diagonal of the cranium in general right? That's a nice
diagonal to have, counteracts our vertical here, counteracts
this line of the arm.
And also it reinforces the general diagonal that we have
in the canvas. So there's a lot happening here right, but
there's a spiraling
that's happening here as well. So there's a lot of these internal
movements that
you can just explore. You know, you don't have to necessarily
get them down right away. You can - you can just see
where they appear a little bit more organically.
I'm very cautious about the head mainly because
the proportions,
when it's sort of as large as this and as high up the
proportions might be skewed. Now keep in mind I'm not
necessarily looking for an exact sort of portrait though,
right? I'm looking for a convincing head.
I'll see how precise I want to be with the actual
character of it, right? There's that nice highlight on the
cheek, which gives us a bit of form as well as there.
And of course right there.
Fantastic, I'm almost okay with it now as is. Maybe the head is
a little bit smaller than it is in natural life,
which is a kind of heroic proportion that I can't stop
myself from applying. It's something that we would do at
the academy all the time. They
they like that heroic proportion.
Okay, so I'll keep that at the moment. I'll probably -
looks as though the back of the neck can kind of enlarge a
little bit.
Something like that. So I'm okay with what I have right
there. Let's
move this for now and move into here.
Let's move on to Amy a little bit because
things are beginning to come together.
I like the gradient as well. So we need to get this a little bit
clearer. There's a little too much construction going on
here. So
just unify it a little bit with the hands.
That's already another
reason to take a break and wash them again. I'm already
covered in sanguine.
And just begin to use the eraser to define let's say the
infra clavicular fossa,
the sternal notch, clavicles themselves.
The
light right there on the humerus.
We'll go into that and hatch away in no time,
you know, I can already see we're moving closer to
something a little bit more precise. So, let's see. Let's
get down to
the terminators, right? The terminator is going to help us
here. Terminator cast shadow. Terminator cast shadow.
Terminator cast, terminator cast, and so on right like that we've
experienced and that just is in a lot of ways just a line and
then extend that line into the shadow right? The advantage of
having soft media
is that you can just keep things soft
for as long as possible?
Something that in general we haven't been doing. And
we haven't done too much of when we worked in graphite
except for that
sort of proto Renaissance head, the cast that we worked on,
right? Where you saw that you can achieve a lot of that same
kind of softness with the graphite using these kind of
techniques where you integrate the medium with the paper a
little bit more. As you see I don't really make a mark
without stepping away and seeing it in the full context.
So I'm just using the lights where I see them, right, to
define some sort of structural elements.
It's important to keep right. It'll continue.
So I remove my axis then I put them right back. This is
the name of the game.
Okay, so I'm liking this clavicle though.
Of course, there's also the contrast of
a front view and the side view, right, side view and the front
view. A profile and
a front view.
En face as they say in French.
And in Russian actually.
Right just of course this is overstating it right? Of course,
that's too light.
Not worried about the head so much. I bet just getting
the hang of all that, not even worried about that
other shoulder though as as we spoke about
now, you can see the sort of the - that sort of top plane of
the rib cage. At the abdomen we can move down
and begin to lay in the abdomen a little bit.
Fantastic, there we go.
Hmm. Hmm.
Alright,
so now I took that line that was done with the eraser and I
reinforced it but as a tone. All right, so that's the
interesting part. I'm going to try to see if I can do it with
a value, right, maybe even adding a little bit of transparency to
our shadows by darkening the
negative space in between the arm and the torso.
And I don't know. I don't know if that works. I think maybe
there's more unity necessary. Maybe that distinction is just
ever so slight.
But at the same time that armpit, the
bicep, right, just comparing them. Of course, this is the arm
here. How wide is one arm compared to the other and I'm
not saying one to the other, I'm saying from
like Amy's arm as compared to
Jonathan's. Sike so these are some proportional things to
think about right? It's not common to do this because we're
not as accustomed to
thinking outside of just the scope of
a person composed sort of tightly on a single page, right?
You're adding a lot of problems when you're thinking in
multiples and environment and interaction in contrast in
between the figures.
Kind of keeping my eye out for what kind of nice movements I
have with that
arm because I don't entirely know where to go with it.
It's an arm so it's not that important. But let's see let's
lock-in that abdomen here.
Just a little bit more. Good, good, good, but we need to
get a little bit of that alignment in there.
Of that lower part of the abdomen.
That highlight on
I guess what you could call the inguinal.
It's called an inguinal area.
Right because you can't - it's not really any anatomical part
per se but it's the oblique and
the abdomen there in that area.
Now this is interesting right because we can see these
overlap. So you can see the sort of the structure of
the pelvis,
right, which in this pose is very important. It is very
important. It is not at the sort of the usual tilt that
we're accustomed to, it is
closer to this, right?
That's happening.
And then on top of that there's also a
tilt upwards so that's something to think about.
See where those half tones overlap and shadows all come
together to give you that foreshortened leg. Now this is
of course the oblique and the Asus up to a point. I'm just
going to move along this shadow, right, even though and and tell
myself what it is. That's cast, that's core, that's cast, that's
core.
Now I'm on the the ground again and I'm just going to knock this
back.
Now the problem is because I'm so close, right, my
perspective changes.
Please keep in mind what my perspective is standing upright
because that's where I'm at. If I'm down here
I lose a little bit, right, and I know I've mentioned that there
are parts that need to be drawn from one sort of horizon line
and others from another.
But in this case, right, I'm going to try to be a little
more consistent.
This is interesting. We get the same lines on the other
side. Now, we're going to spend some time with these areas,
but these.
Alright, just to establish that light.
That light right by making that shadow.
Let's get a little bit more light on that oblique.
And look at that overlap, you can see the rib cage and you
can see
the oblique right there because of the -
everything here is sort of squeezed together. Everything
here is extended.
Okay, A lot happened in this moment. this moment
I'm kind of being a little bit more specific with just
observing a little bit more. So I'm going to take a break
because I don't think that at this point I'm going to really
do that much our imagination is going to be helpful.
I'll see you in a second.
refinements. Hey guys.
So yes, still early in the process. Let's just kind of
move around.
Soon I'm going to switch
to some medium that I can control a little bit better.
Primarily
something in pencil form, but there's some stuff I want to do
right here.
Excellent. Oh, yeah, that's ideal.
That's cool, too. You're kind of inhaling a little bit
more. So yeah, I just want to say that always do try to
figure out what's going on with the rib cage on the inhale.
Right? Allow that to define the forms of the rib cage
and it just simply will define the forms of the ribcage
because
they're enlarged and all of the muscles are stretched on top of
it in a way that's a little bit more obvious
for us.
So yeah aim for that inhale. Obviously don't hold that
inhale that long but
and allow your main contrast on that terminator stand out right
you can even
get the most out of your medium like so.
So I inverted what we were talking about earlier, right? I
initially had this shadow be lighter than the space
between the arm and the shadow, but now
that's not what I'm doing.
I'm going to move down
some of the pelvis just a little bit. It's still
easy to do now and that's why
it's nice to take that time.
That leg has to taper outwards a little bit as a form
and most importantly right, we need to get a feeling for
the light on this leg. Now the of course the problem is that
the light is actually not as light as
it seems because it's all the way down here.
So begin to place the knee, the knee cap, the gastrocnemius, the
medial head, right? The tibia,
the common tendon, calcaneus down here, too.
The medial malleolus.
And see how that looks.
Maybe too long at the moment. So I'm going to raise it up a
little bit.
Raise the calcaneus up and see how that goes
but also, right, get that shadow. I want to unify that shadow
with the wall. Sorry with the whatever that is.
And I'm going to use that line again right to kind of just
erase and get a little bit of a
something exciting going on there. In terms of how long things
are I think they're okay,
especially if I keep kind of slightly lowering the pelvis,
making sure things are in place, and I think we don't have too
much of an issue.
Possibly lower that leg a little bit and I'm just going
to hint at some bits in the
face.
Once again, right not too interested in having
just portrait.
Let's just kind of block things in, be a little bit more
specific with your core and you know core shadow,
pretty much all I'm talking about not overstating this
here.
So far I'm
using the value of the shadows and I'm pushing it darker in the
background. I don't know if I'll stick with this right,
there's a chance that maybe somewhere around here the
opposite can help get a little bit more atmosphere happening
there.
And then we're out here and then
at the same time, I'm not sure if this works either right? I'm
not sure if a dark value on both sides of the head is the
idea. But it works for now, works for now, we don't need to think
twice about it. Right all this a little bit more unified, little bit more unified.
You want to find
looking okay,
hint at the eye even though it's not in shadow and get some
nice highlights, right, to place things. So it's a very very
painterly approach, which when we go into painting
in the future, you'll see how all this comes in handy. So
it's not - you won't be lost in the painting because you will
already have this experience. You see that the move from
these soft media into oil paint is actually quite seamless.
Oh, yeah, there we go. Right, we that kind of movement that. We that kind of movement
of the radius, right? That's what's making this come alive.
That's good stuff.
I think clearly that eye is a little bit high so I'm going to bring it
down.
And so obviously the eraser must come in to bring down the
forehead.
But overall I'm getting a good vibe here. This is -
this whole part's gonna be a little bit difficult because
it's so foreshortened from where I am right here.
We're gonna have to figure out how to really express that
effectively
so that will be a challenge.
Okay. So where are we now? The placement is pretty good.
Bring that down a little bit and bring
that oblique down, right, just sort making sure that pelvis
is in the right place, comparing everything to the model,
comparing everything to what's in front of us, thinking hard
about it though, right so that you're not just copying but
everything feels structured and then in place. On the one hand I
feel like we could already get into specifics.
I'm hesitant, of course to do it.
I'm hesitant, but I might just do it. Hmm.
But maybe not before
I re-establish some of these large tonal relationships,
right? That large cast shadow. This is interesting, right?
He's sort of
in the background eaten up by the shadows around him and
she's up front in the foreground. It's a good - this
hand, time to kind of simplify what's going on with the back
in terms of these lines, right, they're not really helping.
Move it on back and then find that hand,
bring it down. That's already interesting. I'm liking where
that's going. Right we have that little bit of an s-curve,
already some sort of contrast against the
side of the page here.
So that's good.
Getting into
more of these strong contrasts, the more than we can find at
this earlier moment,
the better it would be
for us later, then we'll have our accents. Don't
need to think about that later Later.
as much, right? We already have some sort of - and also if
you're doing it at the very beginning, it's also
easier to kind of keep a
a broader handling and not
get caught up in specifics. Right? So your
you are establishing these large accents
and then you're working around them. So you're keeping them.
That's not to say you can't change them but
this requires a little more unification I think. Good and
that allows us to get a little bit of a tone down there,
right, in there.
To really have
some emphasis in the highlights when we do get to the
highlights.
The neck is narrower, take it all the way down, trapezius.
There we're here.
Okay, why not? So what I'm going to do, switch to my
sanguine pencil.
The conte and the CarbOthello pencil, but both are fellow pencil, but both are
quite good. Before I get into that I do need to cut
my erase,
have a sharper edge because now we're getting into
some refinement. Just take it piece by piece.
It's time for that do as much as we can.
Cut the eraser.
Have the thing I smudge with.
Have that little sharp eraser.
And we're set really, we're set.
All right, clavicle.
Oh, that as a color is marvelous.
So is this, perfect. All right, look at that. So now
begin to get the specifics into place, right that's
short head of the sternocleidomastoid, falling
over the clavicle. Knock it back though, right? It's light, but
how light is the question.
Get that highlight on the sternocleidomastoid, but
especially right be specific on the
sternal notch.
Get the highlight on this clavicle, but move up.
This part's enjoyable, this part sort of the technical
part. The one where you're really just exploring.
I don't want to over hatch though. I think there's -I'd
like to use the hatch for defining certain things.
But a lot of it's going to be a little bit softer.
I'm interested in that softness here.
Especially because I feel like there's a softness in some of
the structures here that I can then
compliment with maybe a sharpness of edge
somewhere up there.
I should always, especially in this case you're not just
thinking of these large lines and all that stuff. Even though
of course you are but you're thinking also in contrast,
right? That's what's - and if you're thinking in line, then
you're thinking the contrast of line.
Kind of contrast is everything.
Don't do one clavicle for too long without moving out to the
other. See already you can get the back there.
I'm getting a good, right, remember how important
clavicles are and they require solid construction.
Good.
I'm going to keep that for now. I don't feel like I need to
go in that more,
right, but then just soften
these areas around the sternum at first and then begin to
carve.
So the trick is you don't want to spend too much time in one
spot.
So you want to gradually build it up until you get to a point
where then you decide to spend enough time on it to
complete
an area.
Okay, clavicle beginning to stand out a little bit more.
Probably have to bring this down.
Open up the shoulder girdle just a bit more
because I'm
running out of space here. I can't lift that any higher.
But also yeah, you can just start getting into the hatch
itself right? Just allowing it to define
larger areas,
but also the terminator.
And look at you can really push that value.
It's a very hands-on process as you see.
Sometimes you just can't
get the effect you want with the
tools, you have to smear.
Core and cast shadow here begin with simply establishing the
edges.
It's not as important to figure out where one begins and ends
at this point I think because we're still keeping things in a
sense loose and
in order to be able to sort of without any hesitation making
the necessary changes.
Though here I am separating core from cast and moving all the
way around to establish the end of the sternum.
And then
some more information on
this
form. It's a darker value.
And light on the ribs.
It's still kind of rough, right, you can see that's pretty
rough.
It's more of a block. I still am thinking kind of
beginning to introduce those large block like constructions
of
the rib cage and all the specifics.
We need those.
Though I am interested in this being considerably more organic
as it progresses.
But I want to try to keep that to some degree.
Move - I lost my center line. Let's move it, right, there's
something more interesting and the particular curvature there,
but also the pose might have just slightly shifted and it's
good because it allows us a little bit more clarity on
seeing
some things.
This right, all of this is the front plane of the ribcage and
this is already side plane.
I'm going to begin to
knock that back even more.
And in doing so we're going to lose a lot of our shadows.
That's okay.
There we go.
Extend this out right? It's okay. The whole
point right, the whole process is kind of just
the loss of information and then you're finding it
again and you're losing it again.
The oblique here,
very important to find it.
And I'm going to get that line in there again. I probably
don't want that until like all the way to the end, but it's
nice now.
Side plane of the lower abdomen.
Or rather intermediary plane.
The naval,
take a vertical, see where it is.
Kind of even though there is a change along the center line it
falls pretty straight
onto the end of the sternum.
And bring that lower plane of the lower abdomen down.
I think I'm lacking a width.
So now so the time - oh
such a shame. I'll keep working though.
During the break. I think right, just if I was lacking a width
just stepping back,
getting things a little bit softer.
I'm going to get into the specifics, so it'd be nice to
maybe work on them a little bit without our models present.
See what we remember.
I don't know how much I remember.
right? Maybe we can show this highlight
on the clavicle,
allow it to give us some
semblance of form underneath there.
That seems reasonable.
All right, and then extend it all the way until it's flat and
we all remember and the acromion sweeping around,
perfect. And we'll see how that will affect us in the future.
Right. That's the interesting part, there are times when you
place something in such a way and then you just end up
realizing that
it was there the whole time but you didn't notice it when it
was in front of you.
Opening the rib cage, right, still very schematic in the way
that I'm doing it.
Just making
the main contour I think in terms of the light and shadow.
I'm liking that contrast right? I'm more concerned - I'm trying
to get a little bit of information in place, but I'm
more concerned with the light and shadow as well as tonal
contrast because that's what's going to help me
in the future, right? It won't be as difficult to refine
anything.
And then kind of reintroduce some of these things, right, get
things a little bit softer. Now is a good time to allow
the texture of the paper to play a little bit more
of a role.
Not to say that we won't be completely removed in just a
second. That's very possible. But at the same time it could
be good because it'll hint at where things are.
It'll be - even hint at where you might want that texture later.
Even I don't know if that's bright, but it seems that maybe
it should be.
From a tonal perspective I'm liking what I'm seeing.
Getting that nice core shadow on the leg now is the time. We
remember where it was. I don't remember how foreshortened this
was so I might even get rid of it entirely.
I, you know, I had -
yeah, that's an interesting thing. Right? I just removed
something that I did from out from
observing and you toknow just from what I saw but I was
skeptical at where it really was because I couldn't remember
it and that almost is - that was done
kind of without thinking but that's an interesting idea
right, that if you can't remember it, then you should
remove it and
try doing it again.
It just feels like something's off. We don't know
exactly then that's on you and you need to
do what you can with that. This arm I'm thinking maybe even
needs to be straighter.
So I'm not going to put that arm in as of yet clearly
we're lacking
a value on that side, right? We're lacking environment.
Not not that dark, but let's move it around.
What happens with this arm we can see later, right? It's
holding the foot.
So
this reminds me a little bit of when I had,
there was a person who I had as an instructor at one point
and the idea was basically that he'd come around and remove all
the parts that were good
and just, you know, wipe them away.
His reasoning was basically that if you really know the
technique then you can go back and put them back in. But if
they were an accident, then you don't deserve to have them
on the page.
Now that's clearly harsh but there's something to it and the
more I teach and the more I experience this, the more
I realize the importance of
and we're back and now we can see all those things that we
did from imagination and try to see how right we were.
Yeah, so it's a weird sort of like kind of a cruel way to
teach but there's something about it that makes you very
sort of conscious of what you know, and don't know.
And not sort of -
it also makes you not hold on to
to like individual parts of the drawing or painting.
Awesome, okay.
Let's get back to it.
This probably wraps a little bit more.
Yeah, of course
the deltoid and all those tendinous areas are not as
simple as I made them but simplicity is key at this early
stage.
oOay, we'll go with that. Okay, so let's move on. I think I've
spent a fair amount of time here. I think we need some more
information
along this line
of the torso.
You can see the
abdominals.
Here
this is like right speaking of contrast, I think most of
the modeling is going to be from the outside, right? It's
the clarity of this line and maybe a little bit of like
maybe what's inside is kept a little bit flatter.
Right here we're modeling the inside of the form. Here we're
simplifying it.
Maybe.
We'll see. We might achieve that with an edge.
But clearly a contrast.
Right, we just have to re-evaluate our proportions,
right, because I've enlarged all this down here
and there's a chance
I might have to do a little bit more of that
in other parts as well, even though Jonathan is behind a
little bit so making
just the tiniest bit smaller in that respect is not
necessarily a mistake,
but I don't - I think it's fine.
Right. Let's bring that pectoralis back just a bit. Maybe
take
a vertical to
the asus.
They seem to align which is good and they do.
Here we have a nice way to model the obliques, we can
model
kind of along
this half tone on the front plane of the obliques let's say
but that's clearly too bright, so let's erase.
Right there's that push and pull.
Got that oblique but also the iliac crest which is not that
obvious, but we can enhance it a little bit.
This is a bright area, but I'm not so sure if it's as bright
as this or it's simply the contrast against the arm. I
think it's more the contrast against the arm. So I'm just
going to - I'm going to start by carving it
and then subduing it.
And then establishing that plane of the arm.
The side plane of the upper arm,
maybe pushing that dark value a little bit more than
necessary in order to then carve out of it.
Erase into that arm.
Looks effective. I think looks effective.
Good now clearly
going to introduce a little bit more of a light down here
along that arm. And now it may be a little bit too
robotic.
There are more overlaps that
will give a lot more life to this.
I'm kind of keeping my lights very light at the moment,
maybe too light.
But that's what happens when you when begin to get a
little more specific in modeling, but you lose
those initial contrasts, but I think luckily enough we got
them in place
early enough and with enough specificity and accuracy that
we can always sort of pull back and rely on what
we've
accomplished to
correct some of these mistakes
in the general tonality.
Okay, okay. Okay. I'm like what I'm seeing there.
All of this is sort of shadow, shadow, shadow, shadow.
Probably hatching along the terminator on the gluteus here
would be a good thing because kind of show a bit more
roundness in that form.
I do think I've compressed this arm maybe more than I needed to.
So we will get to that.
In general right, all of this.
Let's knock that away for now.
I'm already beginning to see some of the
things that will arise, right, some of these hard
sort of more compositional questions if you will.
We're going to have to deal with them.
Right, our main accents where everything is, how far to
push everything. Now, of course in a sense
we could take the time to really model everything, not
think of the large relationships at this point and
then come back to those large relationships. That can be
something to do
and in some ways I'm doing it now.
Right. I'm modeling individual areas just a little
bit more specifically without thinking too hard on the larger
context. I step back so that I see them within a larger
context, but I'm not over thinking that.
Okay, so the triceps coming in blah, blah, blah, all that.
We don't see too much of that in. This is all shadow if you
can hint at the hand.
That's probably a bit lower there.
We'll get there.
The head will need to get a little bit larger. So, okay, so
I'm liking how that's moving. It's definitely moving along.
Just gonna
stop there for a second and come back to what we have here.
I'm not worried about the the leg right now, right because
for one
it's all the way down here and I have to -
I can't do it standing up. But also I think proportionately
I'm satisfied with where everything is so it's not so
much -
if I am spending more time on specifics then I might as well
stay up here where I'm comfortable
and model the areas that are more accessible and frankly
more important.
As cool as those knees are.
Now the eraser hatch is of course not a classic technique.
I don't think
we need to overuse it.
But sometimes it just does the job.
See the arm went up and you could see some information down
here. You can see that information on.
The combination of the rib
and the serratus anterior as well as the oblique coming up
into there.
All right, so it's not always rib, not a hundred percent rib.
Getting into the specifics.
All right that already beginning to define something a
little more concrete
and that's great.
Yes, when working on something this large,
especially when you have to some degree a limited amount of
time.
The important thing is to just keep up the pace. Now I'm not
saying the speed it along by any means, but I am saying
don't slow down
simply because you feel like it.
There you go. We're getting the rib cage the opening that the rib cage the opening
of it, right? It's just appearing. I'm not even almost
not doing anything about it.
The hard part is these highlights that are just
slightly brighter and not that sharp and I kind of want to
make them a little bit sharper,
which of course will give you maybe a little bit of a
different quality in the in the texture of the skin itself,
maybe.
Look at that go. Oh my goodness. This pencil is
awesome.
But I don't want to add too much of this other color yet.
So just spending the time modeling now.
I'm already at that point.
You might argue it's early. But yeah, I think it's fine.
Okay, that was interesting, right, just observe certain
changes in the topography, right?
Right at the surface. You could see the abdominals a little bit
more for just a second then you use them.
Exaggerate things, allow them to fall out of the general tonal
structure, you're fine with that. Don't be too concerned. We'll
get that all in place sooner rather than later.
Okay, so here.
We're going to work on that more, but I'm more concerned
with -
Amy could you inhale for a second, just kind of,
yeah. Okay, cool, right.
Thank you. Yeah, so there's a lot of - you can see a lot of
things changing right on the
outer parts of the forms and just let's get them in place.
So we're not just copying
something in front of us.
We're trying to figure out the most interesting
moment to capture it.
Now here
introducing this darker pencil might be the way to go for now,
right? The only key is to integrate is, integrated it into
what's happening here.
Otherwise, it'll stand out a bit too much but I think some
of the form is beginning to appear.
Oh, and if you look from the side you can kind of see
just a tiny bit of more information on the ribs.
On the rib cage rather. Kind of the didn't kind of the
abdominals on the other side.
Carve out some lights,
keep some of these things soft.
The rib cage itself feels to be a little bit more rectangular.
So let's try for that.
Even if this seems excessive and I think what I'm doing is
already becoming kind of over modeled, a little too many
half tones.
That's okay,
we'll knock them back when we have the chance.
I actually think for the moment even though this oped is
already beginning to move.
Look at that. You can just get that into side plane. Oh,
that's fantastic. That's looking good.
That that really turn that form and kind of minimize
information and minimizing information is great way to
keep going.
All right, let's get back to some of the this,
maybe some of these highlights and sort of half tones
on the pectoralis.
Jonathan I think you were turned a little bit more away
from me.
A little more than that actually. Yeah, excellent.
Maybe not that much but I like that
because I actually gives me a tiny bit of light on
that other, on the other scapula, which I'll use.
Okay, excellent oh that's cool, too.
There's some of that information. Jonathan
actually switched legs which is good. I'm going to use that
too, right, I'm kind of open to this moving that way right.
Let's kind of imagine where all that is. that is
I think that's more effective as a pose.
All right, that's a break.
And I'm going to take one
because a lot of change that I need to to rethink this from
afar. So I'll see you in a sec.
this is just a part of it. So this is just a sort of an early
part of the process.
You know, you just need to -
just need to keep at it.
That's my
my pep talk for the moment.
Okay. So where were we?
We're doing some good work down here. I am - this shoulder is
bothering me so I'm going to focus on that and maybe do a
little bit of work on the head and then get some information
on this shoulder right here. So from shoulder to shoulder
essentially.
How's that with the leg?
A little bit of information on the neck.
Can never have enough there.
Hmm. Interesting some things it's seem to just slightly
change, but that's okay. We'll work with them, right, because
exposing more information. Look at that getting a little bit of
that side plane
of
the abdominals.
And then of course, you know this whole area might be
actually just a little bit later.
Kind of get some information into using the
but I just sort of pushing the medium into the paper a little
bit more.
Okay. So, where are we here? So the shoulder right? There's
something bothering me and probably because of the this
whole part right here has to extend out a little bit more,
the -
the acromial end of the acromial part of the
deltoid there.
All right, remember wraps around there's some sort of a
form that looks a little bit more like this. We're having a
very strong reflected light and keep in mind right these outlines
right now are helpful because they just carve out our
outlines. And of course they're going to
pull things out from the general atmosphere, but that's
okay.
Mmm, excellent that I think that did actually quite a lot.
Now
moving into here, right? Let's try to model a little bit more
that light on the acromial end of the clavicle, right, on the
front plane
of the clavicle, but then you can also see that darker value
on the top plane.
Just knock that back and it's okay. If we're pushing it a
little, if it's coming a little bit close to our shadow because
the whole point there's to move that shadow into place, right?
So that defines the form.
Not so that it's simply a cast shadow.
Outline some of these parts right, get into there. You can
see where we can sort of
hard to see but maybe we can add a little bit of a light on
that upper part of the biceps, rights, so that they just appear.
Be organic, don't think too much into these sharp lines right
now because think
at this point right, you might end up losing something
that adds a quality here that I think is important to - you don't
want to
just remove that
with these sort of very
sharp constructive lines in general. I tend to think that
working with a softer medium
also,
the word requires is a bit
I don't want to prescribe anything but it's to some
degree kind of
implies the use of a softer and more organic edge.
But it kind of has a flow all its own.
So the key is right if we can hint correctly at all of this
information, right, if we can hint correctly at the clavicles,
we can get all that in place,
then
we're in a good place really, right, because then
we -
I'll keep it. I've made the shoulders a tiny bit narrower
than they are in real life. But for now, I'll keep it if I feel
like that's something that really begins to annoy me I'll
change it.
So we can hint at say this clavicle right, just enough,
right so that we know where it is.
Remember spend that time on clavicles, they're very
important.
If we just know enough about where it is
and the sort of all those parts of the clavicle that we know so
well by now,
then
if we want to enhance this, right kind of pull it Han sit right kind of pull
it out a little bit more, that won't be that hard.
We just have to be a little bit more observant. Look at that.
Oh, that's awesome, that a changed a little bit right because
that shoulder went up. So this shadow kind of fell behind
it.
And we can use that cast shadow bring it right up to the
clavicle to define it a little bit more, bring it in show that
bit of a highlight on it, too.
See we already beginning to sort of pulling like to pull
out some information
and there's considerably tons more to do, tons more to
do.
I kind of just get that arm in place.
I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that for now.
Look at that roundness right here, right? That's the
pectoralis.
Let's try to follow that form a little bit.
Maybe enhance it, right, kind of exaggerate that a little bit.
Not too much, maybe, but then
we can come in with just a sort of softer light
to cut.
into there a little bit more.
All right.
All this softer, softer, softer.
Alignments, find the other nipple,
make sure things are in place. This arm does keep moving a
little bit and also is not that important at the moment. So
it's not worry.
Let's just follow
the general direction of the
sternum right? You can see how it's a darker value in
here. It begins to
tuck in a little bit more.
And then the end
of the sternum as important
as the beginning or the top.
I mean, I guess it doesn't really end or begin anywhere
you can get and it could begin at the bottom, too.
But yeah
kind of a tendency to start from the top a little bit.
Okay, I'm going to keep this for now as is, there's
something that I feel, right, in terms of just all these half
tones that are appearing. They're definitely giving us a bit more
information,
but they are
affecting a certain quality of light
that I want to keep and that I feel I'm losing.
This is the name of the game a little bit.
Keep squinting and keep moving - just
going to slightly sharpen my pencil.
Don't necessarily try this at home, right because I'm
sharpening pretty much directly into my hand.
I know the amount of pressure applied that it doesn't cut
me but you be careful.
Just wanted a sharper point.
Okay, awesome. Keep going.
I even think that I'm going to use this white line again to
get a little bit of a cleaner form on the ribcage on that
side and keep it now let's see what is happening
with the shoulder here and there's a lot going on. This is
really great.
You can see the curvature right of the deltoid right as it
inserts on the sort of on the outer part of the lateral part
of the humerus.
You can see that curvature right there.
Of course this part is also tilted a little bit flatter on the
posterior side and then we have a bit more information on
the long head of the
triceps.
But of course my concern is not the muscular structures as
much as the bony landmarks.
And we can see them
when we look close, right, we can see this right here
is the acromion,
we've already mentioned that this right here
is the clavicle, you can see it from the front.
There's a lot of stuff going on, right, sort of bumpy area
because it's where -
so let's make it work.
Right, begin to wrap these things around, wrap these forms
around. Here we need to end
that so that we
can see this light
on the acromion as a protrusion. Even if it's sort
of stands out on its own right now that's okay.
I'm getting that
kind of a fuller view of the
deltoid and the arm and don't forget right there is a lot of
light there. So, of course when you're spending too much time on
modeling these things you lose that feeling of light and
that's
something that we're just going to keep running into.
So we have to always go back and look
over at the stuff again and again right to make sure it's
right.
This is the lateral
head
and the common tendon sort of underneath you can see this
moving into the sort of that tendinous area right where all
of the heads of the triceps kind of come together to attach
at the olecranon.
Keep squinting, though, keep squinting to just the values as going to see just the values as
well.
You can see with this particular rotation, right? The
teres major is playing quite a roll quite a roll
and yet a lot of it's in shadow, but we're going to try
to show it
as much as we can.
In certain instances we're going to actually show the form
in the shadow, even though that's sort of not always the
the academic way to do it, right, shadows usually kept simpler.
All right, that's a strong thing. I don't know how
effective that is. But let's keep it. Then right here I want
to show a little bit more on the spine of the scapula.
I'm going to enhance that as much as possible, that edge,
right? This is one of our few places where we really have a
lot of information because it's where
the darker half tones meet the shadows. So that's where we
can really use those dark half tones to refine
what we're looking at.
Let's see a little bit more of a sharpness down here, kind of the
way the forms
of the pectoralis closer to the bottom
attach to the rib cage, right? There's a sharper change
of plane.
There I go cross hatching with my eraser again.
Right and a part of it is just I'm modeling using
shadows and all that stuff, but I'm also trying as much as
possible
to get
the right value for the shoulder in general.
Doing this all at the same time is not easy but if we do it
now then we don't have to do it later.
And when there's a lot of information doing it later
usually means
taking out a lot of that information then having to put
it back in.
All right, then I'm gonna enhance this a little bit that's going to be
a darker value.
Because it's a good effect and we can
push that back into the back.
Clearly too light
but establishes that
medial ridge.
And then you can see the trapezius coming down to that
point as well right, with that tendinous part attaching to
that origin
of
the spine of the scapula.
There's a little kind of complex angle where
things are just more hinted at than actually just -
then you can just
observe. So here's where knowledge of anatomy definitely
comes in handy.
Here I'm just going to
make a mark there even though it's not that intense
where I'm looking. But that sort of just will give me more
or less the end of the scapula.
Now, where's the other one?
There, right? So
those are the forms.
Good.
I think I've kind of exaggerated that
the teres major maybe.
I'm just going to knock it back for now.
Squinting I can still see a lot of good things. Okay,
that's the break.
Slowly, slowly we're getting to just things that are a little
bit more precise little bit more observed, specific,
interesting.
So it's a little bit hard to keep working without our lovely
models at this point because a lot of this is observed and
analyzed from observation. So let's take a break
and see
what we can do when we come back.
this and what we're going to do since we're working sort of
piece-by-piece at the moment trying to kind of put this all
together,
we don't necessarily always - we're not always going to need
both models up there at the same time so from now and for a
couple of hours, you're going to see a combination of what
you have seen, multiple models up, both of them, but also are both of them, but also
the both of them on individually, so
I'm just explaining what's going to happen with that.
Let's get to it.
Okay
And did this is actually quite helpful. Like it's sort of goes
against everything that I was talking about, right, keeping
the whole thing in your mind.
But at the same time
you do reach a point where it's just easier to concentrate when
you're -
when you don't need to just to move your eyes and get entirely
around the whole canvas, the whole
the whole paper. I keep calling it a canvas, but
and so this allows me to just focus on sort of one problem at
a time
and just get some information on there. And then I mean this
is possible obviously to do when both models are
in front of me, but at the same time
just slightly fewer distractions for at least a few
moments is helpful in
spending a little bit of time
I'm polishing some details is kind of all I'm saying. It's kind of all I'm saying
Right getting those little highlights, making sure they
work.
Here's a good highlight, right because it's on a form that's
round. So that's helpful. But at the same time I'm seeing a lot
of repetitive highlights here. So we have to figure them out.
Going back into just feeling that larger mass though, right,
that larger mass of the core shadow on the breast,
following it to the end of the core shadow, and then seeing the
cast shadow from the breast on to the rib cage.
Yeah.
After you're done. So now, we're going to get both of
our models up on the stand again.
Here I am focused on a core -
a core shadow that is of course too sharp.
So I'm just going to soften it
as it sort of moves and maybe even somewhat connects to the
core shadow on the side of the rib cage.
Now see I'm distracted. I want to move into here.
I'm not going to though, I'm not going to. But I do want to.
That's what I was talking about.
Everything right here, the
form here is a little bit more complicated than it seems but
it's not just an abrupt end
of the form against the ribcage. It's
sort of an area in between the sort of the roundness of
the breast and the rib below it. This is
not that easy to do though, but let's try it.
Right it just at the moment it's too sharp. Everything is
just a little too sharp, which is, you know, something which
comes with the territory of this sort of slightly more
constructive
approach
in the tradition of the Repin Academy, but
we are sort of a little bit past that right, we're
trying to get
something across here
the qualioty of the form.
All right. So that as a gradient is rather
interesting.
And now this,
right, we really need to spend time on
what is happening with
the opening of the rib cage in this area
at the end of the sternum.
I'm going to add almost kind of
the brightest highlight I can muster up in this area.
And knock it back. Okay good even strangely enough, right
you could see what's going on with all the muscular movement
on
the rib cage when Amy coughs.
And that's not to say I want her to cough more often, but it's
helpful.
Now, right, follow that highlight and
kind of get some more information in there.
That softness is beginning to have an effect. Most definitely
have an effect.
Let's move on to some of
the forms as we can analyze them here, right? Everything is
sort of round and so
but don't forget the underlying anatomy, right?
Huh.
I think moving that arm out might be a good idea actually at
some point.
I'll think about it. I don't need to do right away.
All right. It's that intermediary sort of area right
before we get it just some sort of skin and
what's happening in those areas in terms of the skin.
This is already kind of really looking specifically at things.
I feel good that we're doing this early on in the process
because
the unification of everything
is hard and
going to take time.
So we want some information on the page before we get there.
Shadows.
That's sort of abrupt right now, very clear.
The eraser is clearly taking off more than it should or
rather more than I want. Excellent, inhale.
Perfect. I saw that inhale so that's great.
And the laughs all of it helps. It's all good.
Let's see the
part of the abdomen there, the the
top of square part of the rectus abdominis.
And things are getting more defined. I am going to do this.
I'm going to move this all out to here.
I think that makes more sense.
Oh boy why there's always something.
All right, that was easy enough.
The specifics I'll change as we get there.
Good. I'm okay with that.
Couple of overlaps on the edge
This arm -is that kind of where your arm is - that's where it's
comfortable, right? Yeah. Yeah, I just had it in a different place.
I'm thinking
it was more like that.
Yeah.
That gives me a little bit more of a tilt here.
You have? Okay. Awesome. Yeah, see so that's the fun
part, right, keep changing stuff halfway through.
Hmm.
Yeah interesting. This is - there's more foreshortening
happening on this arm so more light as well.
I actually might change the leg as well. I like where it is
now.
So you so we did we put a little bit of a
of something under the -
pull it if I don't know if you can notice but it's there
and it raises this knee.
And I think these angles
are more interesting now, of course, all of this has to come
up, but I don't mind.
Yeah, so this is you know, always one of the more
important things, be always open
to the changes that can happen.
I think it's more interesting, right, these lines.
I'm going to add a little bit of light so that we can
separate the leg from the pelvis.
Alignment, construction.
Can't forget that, right?
See so we are refining everything but also making
pretty drastic changes
because we want to.
But it's nice to keep refining in the meantime, right, so that
you're not just simply moving things around kind of
aimlessly.
You're just moving them around but also trying to get like a
little bit more information there bit by bit.
I'm adding some sort of a shadow on that arm, I think.
Right, because I'm not so sure I need the full arm, we'll see
how that goes, right? It should be somewhere there.
I'm still just sort of carving, right, just carving stuff out.
Right? The head does need to appear from the darkness a
little bit more. So
increasing contrast there is helpful.
Now you can see that head begins to appear even though of
course, it's still very very raw unclear what's going on
there.
We won't do too much more there.
All right,
even from a structural standpoint, I think there's
some things happening
that I like, there's a little bit more information.
Kind of bring in
hints of light on that rib
then integrate.
Don't want over hatch, right? That's the whole key, the
idea here, no over hatch. And of course, you know with every
movement some of these like that's the thing you can't
necessarily just copy the shapes of the shadows because it's
going to keep changing but on the other hand kind of
following them and seeing where they're most effective is
enjoyable, right? It's not so much that you need to find
them,
get them on the page and make sure everything reads well, and
then just stick to them. You kind of don't stick to
anything.
Just, you know, you keep experimenting.
All that work I did.
But look at that angle of the shoulders now, which is a
little bit more dynamic.
So I feel like using it.
So this is where this assignment becomes
compositional right?
Oh, there we go. Okay. Okay. Okay, so I'm still, right,
they'll come a point where I'll stop changing things and just a
polish but you see at that point it will already be
surprisingly far along. Now clearly my highlights are all
little bit repetitive
and I'm okay with that for now.
All right, we get to say goodbye
to our model Amy for a tiny bit of time.
Leave all that for now. As I step away I can see
that
there is clarity beginning, you know, there's enough contrast
there.
I do think that even some of these values are maybe darker
than we need them.
We'll figure that out. Right? Probably right here is where
we're going to have some real areas of contrast.
So
now we want to other specific things.
Move back into the deltoid here and here I'm a little bit more
open to kind of slightly just slightly more angular treatment
of these things,
of this anatomy.
I think they're - in terms of the sort of the angles and the
contours
that's obvious and clear and interesting. But within I think
the modeling should be soft. Here the modeling can be here. The modeling can be
sharper because the angles and the interactions of sort of
form against another one are also sharper.
I'm using everything - like I'm kind of placing a value but then
removing it a bit.
Making sure we're getting a little bit of sharpness.
Maybe even more than I see.
Right just getting information on,
you know, this whole area of the rib cage.
Jonathan could you turn away from me just a bit?
Thank you.
Yeah, this is a bit closer to where we were.
Alright find that outline.
That elbow, there's a lot of information there.
And this whole part right here is a common tendon, but also
that inner piece of the triceps, you could see the
anconeus, one of my favorites, right, that little triangle
thing below.
It's strange right it's not seemingly that important almost,
right, small but it just gives that effect quite well.
And then
here we have our -
what are those called? Our
extensors with the bronchial radialis and the extensor
carpi radialis longus and the brevis and all those.
So
let's get into some of these reflected lights on the other
side of all that information
as well.
So maybe even a line will appear in one of those areas to
define where everything is.
But in the meantime,
that's not
exactly what we're going to do. Now, even though Amy isn't
here, ee know that we were thinking and even when she was
though we were thinking of casting a shadow, right, these
shadows are here and there was one on the lower part of the abdomen
as well.
So I'm taking all these shadows that appeared,
that is interesting I think I need to kind of create this
depth.
All right.
So we're going to come
back and work with Jonathan for a little while
longer.
Let's take that break.
Jonathan as he is our
only model for the moment, allowing us to concentrate on
some specifics.
I did notice that I do want to make a couple of changes to the
head
because I just feel it's small, right? Everything up front
kind of got a little bit larger. That's good I think
because
but at the same time
we lost a little bit of that in the back.
All right, so
just gonna outline the head a little bit more,
but I don't have to change it that much.
How does that feel? A little bit larger and I'm into it.
All of this, right, we'll have to see what the size of
everything is over there too, I think that head to get I think that head
might be a tiny bit too big but in general.
Yeah, here's where you really begin to run into these little
problems. You have to just keep adjusting. I don't think
there's anything of large proportional error. And now is
on the one hand not the time to do it right because we don't
have
both models up there, but once we do
we'll read when we address it I think.
But just squinting and that's mainly because certain things
enlarged in here and so that's going to happen elsewhere.
Just kind of bring
all of that shoulder up a little bit more.
That kind of elongates the torso
and the neck.
That tilt is interesting. I've maybe
exaggerated it a little bit.
What I'm going to do actually is maybe bring down the asus
just a tad.
Right by bringing down the oblique and that kind of a
elongates the torso.
And this was where I
wanted a tonal contrast, right, between them.
That's what I'm going to call the narrative here.
Right it's not so much that there is
a story to be told
because as I said earlier, I don't think
the stories to be told here for the purposes of the exercise are
that interesting
though, of course, you can come up with interesting
ones,
but since
we're trying to
see a certain formal interrelation not
a narrative one then we need to explore this on those terms.
I'm going to put that leg back where it was initially, the
engaged leg, the one that's carrying the weight. It just
makes it a bit more logical sense I think.
Just get the ear and the
sternocleidomastoid.
Take this line,
look for the trapezius in the back here.
Good, good, good. Good, good and then
move down the back.
I'm gonna keep
bringing down the pelvis for just proportional reasons, if
you noticed I did that in
the bigger assignment, right? That was what happened. I had
to move the entirety of the pelvis,
but here it's not that drastic of a change
at all.
But it's still there,
that other arm. I need to sharpen my pencil I think.
I got a little bit smaller, don't really I need it that though, really I needed that
sharp, but I just needed a larger amount of
of the lead
or in this case sanguine Conte. Okay,
let's keep at it.
Just lock that in for now.
Let's get that into a softer darker shadow because that
just needs to go away.
Kind of allow that cast shadow from the arm to become the core
shadow on the gluteus.
That sort of placement as well. And of course, maybe not
that sharp, but
at least to some degree and then that other arm,
I'm almost thinking we treat
as you know with line.
Those darker accents are prime importance. Let's bring down
the rib cage as we see it sort of tucking under the oblique.
And the tensor
right, catching a lot of light.
So now of course everything here is already been over
modeled, right? That's the hard part.
Hinting at some forms within the shadow.
In general there's not much going on there except maybe
this light but even that should not be as bright, but let's
keep it for now, but you can see how unified that all
looks and it already looks a little bit better.
Let's get a feeling for that box of the pelvis here.
And reintroduce everything with line.
And then even what now appears shadows can at least be pushed
into the range of the darker half tone.
Right to get that side or either the posterior part of
the deltoid right that I removed and raised a little bit
of some of this of this trapezius and
all that information up there. I just knock that back is going
to help.
Sternocleidomastoid, the thyroid cartilage catching a
lot of light. Let's just hint at it.
We'll get to all these forms in the neck. You can clearly see
the sternocleidomastoid there.
It's fine.
You need it in smaller pieces as you get into this thing
anyway.
So let's keep working.
Alright just getting more information on the head.
See that side plane,
that highlight going down the side plane from where we are
right, that side plane, the zygomatic, and the masseter.
But I'm sort of thinking of larger structures in the head,
not so much
these
specific ones that pertain to likeness.
Or even the features because the likeness I'll get later if
necessary.
It might be.
Interesting. I like that haze.
We'll figure out what to do that eventually
as we get a little bit more specific, right?
And hair.
Getting a little bit of some more information on that.
That's most likely the infraspinatus that
I can sort of see.
Not much of it of course.
And then following down the back of the neck. You can see
that terminator
as it establishes the general direction as well as the light
on the sternocleidomastoid.
Carve again, carve to make sure it reads clean, head feels slightly
large now, but that's the big problem with
working on something so large.
But I actually think it's closer, right, we can just
slightly carve the head, just slightly. I think we get to a
more precise proportion.
But I'm being pretty pretty loose with it. This is
sort of a larger -
I'm working on larger forms.
As I said, we have precise information
up there when we need it.
Just want a bit of that contrast up there.
There's a lot of these things that I would like to really
model.
There's a softness there,
we need to show this as a
as a plane
with of course some movement along the -
along that plane, right? So it's not -
so that we can still establish that room for highlight on the
tensor. Usually the major plane break.
Even if that feels abrupt a little bit,
I'm okay with it for the moment. I like what I have
there.
But this right here can be pretty much
as dark as possible.
All right,
and that's a break.
Let's take that break and be back.
only model that we have at the moment.
Getting more and more specific.
Actually, I am almost interested in introducing that
other color like I did on
Amy's rib cage, right, just and integrating it just enough, but
we'll see where that goes. Okay, excellent. Yeah, that is
perfect. Fantastic. So yes now I can
spend a little bit of this time defining the forms of the
shoulder girdle as we see them. This is a complicated place,
right, seeing where these planes
appear, what those particular bumps are is an interesting
thing. Now, we've kind of inflated the pectoralis a little
bit.
It feels a little bit flatter than it needs to be getting it
down to here. This is just a bit almost like the value of
the background which we don't need.
And we have our information right here. Right? All that
stuff that's allowing us to read the scapula is very that's
clearly this is that.
I do need to bring this in but also make sure that we're
getting a clear, at least for now, inline a placement of the
other side of the arm.
In terms of the
the facial features I think the nose does come down a bit.
And all that will come down just the slightest amount. I
think that'll be proportionally
correct. Squinting a little bit more, right?
Even within the shadow, let's find the end of the form
itself.
Our trochanter.
And a light on the trochanter, but also where is
the back and where is the gluteus? Right? I think you can
pull the hips
back just the slightest amount and maybe open up a little bit
more information in the back, right, kind of just allow it to
taper a little bit more.
Kind of carve the head a little bit, right, for this step, step
back a lot when you're working as large as I am at the moment
and I think the elbow does come down a little bit because this
arm felt a little bit short and that helps how I think a little
bit.
Excellent.
Just using the eraser to get some information in there, but
right here too
we can hint at the spine and a little bit of the erector spinae
especially here underneath the latissimus.
The key is how much information do we really need in this
shadow? And I don't know we'll just have to keep sort of
putting information in there and then maybe wiping it out.
That might be the way to do it.
All right. That's the core shadow if we have to figure out
what the form of the gluteus is in these areas
and where it ends.
The other elbow
and the hand, right, which I think at this point maybe can be handled
exclusively in line and maybe will remain
as something that I draw only line and then kind of see what
happens with it. We don't need to worry too much about it.
Using the eraser to establish those areas.
And here just can actually bring these forms of the
oblique a little bit closer through that highlight,
closer to the edge, right, we're not seeing as much of the
side plane of the abdominal muscles,
the rectus abdominus.
But even our hatch here right can help get that mass of the
oblique.
We'll figure out what to do with that. Also there's a lot
we still have yet to figure out if
you haven't noticed
that is
I've been repeating that over and over again, so
it's not that I'm procrastinating, but I just
want to keep moving, right, that I think of large areas in
their entirety, not get too caught up with stuff.
The pelvis does need light.
Let's take this pretty much to where maybe we can see the
knee.
I'm going to explore that actually, not maybe at this
instant, but let's see perhaps right the back of the leg here,
hamstrings, we could potentially
imagine where that leg
is.
And see if we're right, right? For this we need to sketch it
in
and step back and we're not going to need it all
the way right? Maybe this pulls in more,
maybe some perspective there, obviously
we'll see where is this other leg right? Is it somewhere
here? I don't know.
We'll play around with that. We just need to get it. I think
it'll just help if we have an idea. Even if it's in shadow of
where these things are
so that then we can see how much of it we need or don't
need based on the composition.
A light in that gluteus medius,
not highlight, highlight will be on the tensor, but we're on the
edge between the two.
This is interesting we have forms along this edge right, these
overlaps.
Right and remember that the pelvis, right, is actually inside,
that's not actually the iliac crest. You won't be able to see
it
because the oblique is covering it.
So as I in some ways predicted, we're definitely losing some of
those initial contrasts that I so wanted to preserve.
So now I'm just going to work a little bit without the model.
I just to make sure that we have those contrasts but just
at least reminding me what to do with them once the
models are back.
So
just going to try to imagine where the rib cages is underneath
here. Right? So
and clearly
contrast like that do need to be reinserted. But that's a
whole
separate activity almost right? That's something that we
definitely need to spend time on.
GOnna bring that knee back, right, lock that knee.
And there's more to do with that arm right because now
there's information but no large volume.
So all those highlights that we initially had do have to come
back and begin to play that larger role again in the
structure of the arm as a cylindrical form.
Possibly higher, I don't know.
I'm imagining. So we're working into it now.
Let's take a break and we're going to come back and work
exclusively with Amy who will be our only
model for about an hour or so more and then we're going to
put our models back together and the see
what went haywire in this process.
back and work with our model Amy.
After you.
And we're primarily at the moment, right, we're focused on
just getting as much information as possible. Right
not - we're worrying too much about unity or anything like
that.
I'm gonna cut my eraser
to something,
shape that's easy to work with.
I have another eraser, right the eraser becomes in a sense
more important than
the pencil at some point right because you're using it
to carve out the shapes of highlights, the edges of
half tones.
Even your shadows, right? Everything is done with the
eraser more is done with the eraser as you proceed.
Let's see how much we can do.
Okay.
Awesome.
Yeah, I think the other arm we'll work with that - it's more like this
yeah, that's good.
Yeah, so that's great if - I'm going to work on the head for a
tiny bit. So if you could just - like doesn't need to be in exactly the
same place, but I think we need to decide where. Can you
turn it a little bit to the left?
Yeah, it's fine. It's fine.
We'll see where it goes.
All right, so let's just figure out what we're doing here.
Right? So the neck a little bit narrower. Just - good,
look for where the chin is, right, and here keep it pretty
loose that we just have
general placement of
shadows.
So just -
the important thing is to just keep
looking at where these intersections are of the head
and the neck.
And as I said, I think some darker values around the neck
and head are going to be quite important here.
But the key is to not overstate anything in the head, right,
because it'll just take away from other parts. So if
there's an issue with character or anything like this, it's not of
prime
importance.
So I'm carving out here right? I'm
I'm trying to sort of have as
broad a treatment as possible in the head.
But at the same time I need to keep stepping
away, so I can see things in context.
Enhance all those shadows but then go up the
trapezius, sternocleidomastoid, right, all those things All right, all those things
are important.
I have been looking at,
and everything here
while I'm not actually directly working on anything and I do
have some ideas
on what can happen.
I have a couple
of ideas that aren't entirely just about execution but more
about how to compose this in an interesting way. So I'm
actually thinking of maybe something will happen with
this arm and I'll move it upwards but I'll see how that -
I'll see how I feel about this when Jonathan comes back.
But but as I said in the meantime, it's more important
just get some
things on the page that are
accurate and even in some sort of in a way complete, right,
in terms of the amount of information in an area or
detail.
And here you can really just treat the eye socket as one
area.
Just one larger structure. Don't - all those things about
the head don't apply. I mean they do apply but not to this
same extent.
Just enough for it to look like.
The important thing is how large the head, this is of
course something to think about.
Let's bring that in. I do think the shoulder will end up coming
in a little bit more than that.
Right see I'm just - it's a much more painterly
application there.
Right. I just I put in the iris, upper lid, lower lid with an
eraser. We're done.
Making her look a little bit off to the side kind of adds
that
slightly more
contemplative quality to the gaze, but
I can't say that was entirely intentional on my part.
There was just something that I
was able to pick up for a moment.
And
right, using that eraser to establish that reflected light,
but also to get that other side
of the neck.
Sternal notch.
Yeah,
bring all that in.
And see like the - it's not so much that I'm copying the
tilt, as you can see I'm not.
I'm
just
improvising on the head here, which is
actually quite enjoyable.
But there's that awesome hair.
This is
me, really working with the eraser.
As you can see it's kind of more important.
I can get angles and edges that are
more obvious, more important with the eraser than anything
else.
Alright, alright. Alright.
Right,
I did move that shoulder out. So we do obviously that
interrupted some
of the stuff happening in that shoulder so we
do need to get
some of those half tones in place again.
Angle of the jaw.
Right, getting a little bit more specific on the particular
changes on the contour on that trapezius.
But all right, let's just keep going, doing what we can let's keep going to what we can let's
say on the shoulder.
Right these half tones should be there, but maybe I've
overstated them and personally
you can see that
total part of the technique is how integrated the medium
becomes with the paper. Right? Like it's rubbed in all the way
and it creates a certain softness
and I personally think it's very important
to working in sanguine.
It really is a sort of the mediums
essence.
This ability to
integrate it with
the paper,
right? We need to be thinking about what the medium itself
can imply and that's of course as a concept of extremely
important in contemporary crt,
but I don't think it's exclusive to
contemporary art,
right? To get the greatest and most interesting effect that
you can you need to be aware of the possibilities of your
medium.
Everything here should be
but that terminator
needs to come into play again.
We got lost just a little bit and see it becomes a darker
value.
The thing to think about also as sort of
a natural
extension from what I was just talking about, right, that sort
of locate the possibilities of the medium itself
is this -
is that we do need to realize that the medium and I've spoken
about this I didn't because we have worked with sanguine
before
the medium
it is
has a narrower tonal
range then a charcoal or even in some cases a graphite, even in some cases a graphite.
right, because just the darkest that you can go is considerably
lighter in value than
then if we were using charcoal for example.
And this is an important thing and I even important thing and I even
am interested to see if in order to complete this, right, in
order to just get those
areas here to really read
completed.
I'm not going to if it's going to be helpful, if I add
another color, I'm not saying a black. I'm not saying adding
charcoal.
However, I think
maybe just a color that's slightly darker value then this
particular red.
I did this a little bit with just the pencil, but I'm I'm
more at the moment talking about just a larger treatment.
Take my time right now, right, because I just want to make
sure
to get as much information as we can right? It's not about -
I'm not trying to move things around like I have been
for most of the time I was working on this up to this
point.
I'm just trying to be as specific as I can be.
Side plane.
So that's already turning away from us. And of course a little
bit of light here because the pectoralis is pulled out but
maybe not as much as that I put
softness
is crucial.
So use the eraser
in a way that gets you that softness, right? So that maybe
everything
is just kind of smoothing out a little bit more than we
have been up to this point. But as you see, I think it's
actually kind of effective.
I do like live in more of a hatch on the ribs.
But then maybe extending it a little bit with
the
other tools.
I'm going to come back to this,
to the
the pencil, with a slightly darker value. I didn't now I'm
just exploring these tiny areas of light that maybe I
just overlooked or maybe they weren't even in the place when
I was -
when I was working on all this.
Here it would be nice to find where that arm ends, right, kind of
lost a little bit.
We need this extra contrast along this terminator, right?
Excellent it's really making these areas in those half tones
stand out much more.
The key is, right, to keep sort of calm and just
in a sense hack away at it, pretend you're just carving. pretender. Just carving.
All right. All right. All right, but then here I'm
gonna enhance this insertion of the deltoid, right, this whole
thing. We are from the back here
and that is break.
Time flies, doesn't it?
Just going to
I don't know. I don't know. I'm wondering do I keep I'm I'm wondering do I keep
working on this in the break?
I will for a tiny bit. Maybe I won't take all of it.
Right, these sharper it sort of straighter lines in this case
aren't helping me.
But yes, I actually I will - I will will I will
take a moment and I'll
get back to all these interesting anatomical
parts in a second.
it.
I have a chair now
which will be helpful and I know that almost all the
assignments up to this point I have not - I've been standing the
whole time.
However,
this -
when you're working on something as large as this,
it's quite helpful to have
the ability to get closer to parts at the bottom without
necessarily moving everything.
But also - and I didn't speak about this because I do think
standing is important and often not practiced enough.
I actually think that
when you- if you're on a chair
it kind of concentrates your attention
on an area.
Enlarge that rib cage.
Yeah, it concentrates.
Like
if I'm
standing I'm moving around a lot and I'm moving around the
the canvas or the paper as much as I can
and that's very good when you're starting out, in at the
end, and also when you're completing the
the piece but right now right where I need to just
concentrate
having a chair is really helpful.
Look at that, that's actually a dark value, which is good.
Integrate that into the rest of the values but I think having a
dark value there and like one of the more protruding parts
in sort of the rib cage, really showing where the rib
cage ends there, that is definitely helpful.
And I mean where I'm working now, I didn't necessarily need
a chair. But I am going to need a chair when I move on to the
leg. There are of course some problems that I'll run into,
like the fact that the angle is no longer
what I need it
to be simply because I'm just at the same horizon as the leg
now.
But we'll cross that
bridge a little later.
Right in the meantime, I'll do what I can in the areas I can see.
The asus
right there.
I'm okay with that placement.
All right clearly, this is way too light but clearly is an
overlap so we can soften it later. But in the meantime,
why not?
Getting that highlight
and maybe extending that highlight past the ribs into
the abdominal, right, these are still the abdominal but you can
see the ribs underneath but you do want to get a little bit of
a
movement, right, of like a movement of the highlights as
something apart from the actual anatomy, right, something that
cuts into the anatomy. This is quite important.
So yeah, I know this isn't as exciting at the moment to
observe. At least I think it's more just
me
going from one little area to another.
Hmm. Okay.
So this particular crease right - here is where I got to stand -
is important because that's a very sort of specific area that
clearly belongs to the pelvis.
That is closer to when I get there.
Let's place where some of these sort of creases on the
skin are, right, and they'll help us establish internal
structures and maybe certain
interesting areas like
that break in the abdomen.
But it's this leg
that's going to be an interesting challenge from this
angle, right? That's an interesting challenge from this
angle.
Let's start by making it a little bit clearer.
Hm.
So it's almost like I'm using
the chair to get closer to the area that I'm working on but I
have to observe it from a higher angle. This is -
when working as large as this you encounter
this problem in a lot
of different instances, right, because the paper is large or
canvas depending. It's more common that you have a canvas
as large this right, like even if you go to an art store, it's
hard to find papers large as - it's hard to find
the hard board that you need in order to prepare paper as large
as this, that's just not that common
and drawings historically were always considerably smaller
than the paintings.
But this is good practice.
So
it's actually quite interesting that I think practicing on
something as large as this will definitely prepare you for
working on larger paintings.
So
the interesting thing is that you can't see everything. So if
you're working from
a model or multiple models in our case, it's hard to see
every part of the paper in the right perspective
with the proper proportions and also see where the models are
in the same spectrum proportions. So a lot of it is
kind of like you're looking at just pieces but assembling it
for imagination in a way a little bit more than
a lot of other cases.
Hmm. This is interesting place. You can see the side plane
there.
This is side plane or a kind of intermediary plane, which means
that the terminator needs to be enhanced right there. So that
this clearly falls away into shadow and we get this illusion
of plane break,
which is the same as plane break, right, because it's all
an illusion.
We're all just trying to
play some sort of
a trick on the viewer.
This is important to accent down here. Right? Because that's
also the pelvis even though not like acting not really but
enough to work with. Now
the lateral condyle, the patella,
snd the head of the tibia couldn't be clearer.
Just couldn't be clearer.
Kind of erasing out those highlights on
the
medial condyle and the patella
and then let's
see what shadows we have half tones along the patella
but a little bit of a shadow at the top of it and the top plane
of the patella.
And that of course shadows
on the epicondyle
as well strong lights
and of course
here I have to get even lower.
Yes, that's the other thing right? So if you're
working with big it's kind of a workout.
Good.
Now to get some unification here. We can see
some of
the forms of kind of the medial leg, right, the inner leg.
Whether they be the vastus medialis,
the sartorius a little bit.
We got to get a new place either way.
Or just maybe it's just a little bit of a -
just even something that's not that clear, right,
somewhat nondescript. Hmm.
Make sure to clean
your erasers.
You can clean them out anything.
I'm cleaning them on this table.
There we go.
See so you can kind of just -
because especially if you're - you can even clean up on the
side of your paper. It's good. The thing is,
yeah, make sure to clean your erasers because especially if
you use the same eraser for different projects, you might
have bit of graphite on them or charcoal
or something that you don't want combining with the medium
that you're currently using.
And other times it actually maybe even lends itself to
interesting effect. So just explore that.
So here
I can actually see some of the vastus medialis.
I see it more as just sort of a general half tone thatnanything
else.
The general half tone of the leg actually is darker than the
lower part of the abdomen. So I'm just going to erase into the
lower part of the abdomen a little bit.
Keep in mind things are still kind of like they're clearly
getting more and more precise, but they are a little bit
sort of totally incoherent.
I'm allowing that to happen because I don't want to be
distracted when something is sort of as complicated as
this, you want to
simplify
everything into just a little bit more of -
just kind of break up the process for yourself as much as
you can, right, so that you're not trying even see it. You're not trying
to do everything at once.
And of course with experience you end up doing more and more
at once, that becomes easier, but for now, you know,
especially if you decided to work alongside at a
scale, that's maybe not as big as this but larger than you're
comfortable with, then that's -
so yeah, I'm just putting that shadow underneath that leg so
that we have
the end of it, right, so that I see where that leg ends.
And getting into
these areas right there. And here too, right? We can't just leave
this as is we need to continue with that half tone
so that we establish a clear side - a side length clear side poop a side length
of the leg, even if it's primarily in shadow.
The medial
condyle of the tibia as well as the
patellar ligament and you can see it reaching towards the
tibial tuberosity.
Oh, there we go. That knee's forming,
right, and a lot of times when it really begins to appear
it's all due to just a little bit of work with an eraser.
By carving. And think of it as
and always think of it as something you're
like, it's not just on a flat piece of paper that you're
thinking of what's happening to the form in space.
You're actually - well not actually, but you're like
you're
pretending you're actually carving.
All right, let's get some of those shadows on the other leg.
Right here. It's very important not to get
that particular crease but then this little area
in there so that there's lots of changes along that plane and
clearly the change there because that area that
belongs to the
the sartorius and the tensor.
Tensor.
Let's get some light on this knee.
Excellent.
And then subdue it a little bit.
Just let's make sure proportionally and which we can
take with just an angle seems okay to me.
Alright just get a general placement for the
two bones of the knee as well as the patella. I guess
the third bone.
You can call it that.
Just placing that as a darker value definitely helps.
Now what's interesting here, right, is this overlap.
That's hard to get.
But we want to try to see where the bottom
of the leg is
right because it's on top of the leg underneath.
Cast shadow from one leg onto the other right, really we're
going to spend some time with all these cast shadows from
one anatomical form on to another but also from
everything from everything on to everything else, right? So
onto the
bench, onto the floor,
we're going to play around with that and enhance all that because
without that
they're just floating in space. That's kind of the last thing
you want.
So a knee, right, that knee
is done from understanding
more than anything else.
But you can observe a little bit, right, to just confirm
your understanding.
Tibialis anterior.
And the medial malleolus. Oh.
I was getting into these parts already. So it's good.
Excellent. I'm in
kind of a concentrated
place in my mind, right, I'm able to get specifics and
moving all around. I'm not, as I said earlier, I'm not so
concerned with where
we are tonally, right? I'm more concerned with where we
are
structurally.
All right. Let's take a break
and keep working.
let's just keep working with Amy on some of these parts that
we already started.
All my tools in hand,
right, just
Wolverine-ish and just work
here.
Maybe I'm going to extend the
knee out a little bit more.
I don't see why not, not gonna hurt. Right that large mass of hurt. But that large mass of
light on the knees, the important thing so
my plan was I've been, you know, I say I'm taking a
break up a lot of time. They spend the time taking a look
at the work
and seeing where to take it
but the real answer sort of is that
I'm thinking
we spend all this, you know, we get as much information
as possible. But as you see it's still the pass is still
kind of rough, right? There's like there's none of this is
really refined. There's more information there every more information there
was
but refinement isn't the word I'd use really,
at the edges especially, so we're clearly going to have
another pass at that
and see how that,
you know, how it could -how we can spend the time completing
very specific areas.
The other thing about kind of this whole issue with with the
changes in perspective as you stand or sit and come close
and all that is of course that
once you're pretty much satisfied with placement,
you kind of work from - you just observe but you work
within and into the placement that you have.
So we're going to, as I said before, we're going to I said before we're going to
have another pass, right, refining everything,
getting more information, but I think it'd be interesting to do
that after we go back and re-establish some of those main
contrasts,
right, those main elements, figuring out that hierarchy
of elements within a drawing.
This knee clearly going to have those contrasts.
And that's when we're going to talk about -
that's what we're going to talk about right, maybe adding
another color.
Just increase like amplify that contrast and so on,
right, figuring out some of those shadows.
There will be the time for that.
I'll decide about that later.
The advantage to working in soft media. Also, of course is
that
it really opens up
the possibility
of
constantly removing and then adding
in ways that are actually quite organic.
You can see the tibia appearing.
Encountering a lot of these elements that we that we
covered
but maybe in a slightly different position because
this is not sort of the the knee on a standing leg.
That's important
to realize that that's sort of a major part of practice is
that it's important to encounter anatomical elements
in as many different positions as possible because that's the
only way you're going to learn to put them on paper, right?
You have to learn them in the particular context
that you're seeing them at a given moment.
Light on the gastrocnemius
Of course, not that bright, but bright enough.
Interesting. It's like a line is continuous from right
into the foot, elongationgthat line, which is I that that line, which is I
think quite effective compositionally.
Now the question is right, of course the foot is important,
but how important can it be when it's so low on the page.
So you have to really play around with this.
Also, I like this cast shadow from the leg onto
this flat plane.
Just gonna flatten that right now, but I'm getting a feeling of light down
here, which I'm happy with.
I'm going to
emphasize this knee with the background though,
right? And as I said the background is going to come
into play. We're going to do a lot with this
later.
The problem of course being seated on a chair that you
forget to step away, right, you get comfortable.
And if you see the chair that I'm on and it looks like
it's kind of like riding a horse, looks like a saddle.
It's actually surprisingly comfortable.
And I need to get one for my studio.
Though I for the most part when I work in my studio I stand.
It's hard to
even imagine
myself not standing in my studio
because I attach things to a wall.
And so I can't move them up and down.
Okay, I'm going to leave this for now. I think it's kind of
enough information there
and let's get back into
sort of side plane of the tibia the femur.
The vastus medialis right seems to be the important one that
we're seeing more and more of our just based on the position
of the leg, which is the vastus medialis in both instances.
Keep in mind this leg is foreshortened, especially if
I'm standing.
And if I'm standing I actually get a little bit more of that
tilt - see that's the problem with this changing angles,
right, just getting that tilt of everything.
So if you see a little more of a top plane of the leg.
We'll make sure that works. It's already kind of beginning
to work. I can see it as a knee.
Sort of happy with it. I think it's a little bit like I know
this, I say the knee is a block but I think this is too much of
a block.
I'm just going to kind of get a little bit of a -
get it to
taper a little bit more,
right, get these curves.
You can still be relatively loose, right, so that
you're not afraid to
move everything, but I'm just going to take the proportion.
See isn't that weird now, I'm doing it. So
wanted to look at that.
Not as much as I thought initially.
So I'm going from the base of the leg where I can see it to
the knee and I know it sort of looks short, but also looks
more - looks kind of correct. It's weird and then I'll take
this proportion. Actually, it's fine. It's fine.
Yeah,
that's weird. Plays tricks on you. Also, right, keep in mind
that horizontal line feels longer. So even if you're just
at the perfect proportion, it might still look wrong.
I'm gonna pull out the tibia, right, because that's what's
really happening. Right? The tibia is out a little bit more
because the patella has receded.
That moves in a standing position at an angle in other
words, but it's a slightly
different position when
there's a right angle at the knee.
Okay, we'll leave that for now.
I'll take a seat
and let's do just a little bit on the arms.
Now my question is of course, how much do we really do on
this arm right here?
And probably my answer is hardly anything.
I think we can push these dark values against the pelvis and
I'll extend them
into the arm.
That's more like it and now we can see an end to the torso. See
so kind of in completion. We are also in some sort of
refinement, right? We're also establishing some
tonal accents.
It's a weird process right? It's not -
it's a -
yeah, it's not just - it's not clear cut.
Okay, see so that arm is clearly there already but not.
I'm just
arriving at that arm as I go.
But now I want this and I actually like the
foreshortening happening from this particular angle. I'm
going to use it. Right I like this foreshortening of the
forearm
in
this heavy pronation, right, allowing you to get that
spiraling coming down from the brachioradialis
down to
the radius down here in the
the muscles of the thumb.
Clearly too bright
but I think a dark shadow against the lighter background's
the way to go there.
And you know, there's this mass of the brachioradialis in the
extensor carpi radialis
longus and brevis, but you can begin to see of course the
extensor digitorum.
But, you know not in a way that we can actually pinpoint each
and every one of them.
Right just sort of think of it as the group of the mass that
that it's in
that lower part of the biceps is quite important.
I think we're getting a tiny bit. Not so much olecranon I
think it's the
anconeus.
That is creating a little bit of an outward movement there.
Got to step back.
I mean my main problem now is like the highlights are
excessive.
But we'll get there, that's not a - that's something we just
need to think about when we're reconsidering the whole.
In general this arm, right, can't be that bright.
It shouldn't compete with the chest. But the hand can get
lighter and lighter as we get down to the hand, right that's
in order because the hand kind of can compete and the detail
now my question is what exactly are we going to do with the
hand?
It is not an easy place.
I'm just going
phalange
against just, you know, one part against the other and then
index.
Look for variations in hands, right? That's the most
important thing, the phalanges of the index.
A shadow from the middle finger onto the ring
and shadow from the ring onto the pinky.
Not satisfied a hundred percent with this, but I'm not actually
that upset.
Smaller though. It's smaller. Smaller, smaller,
the wrist seems wide to me.
I'm gonna carve that in a little bit more.
Interesting.
Amy could you spread your hand open again?
Thank you.
And of course the hands keep changing, but that's fine. Just
kind of adapt to go with it and maybe there'll be a position
later that I like more so we'll go with that.
Bringing this in, bringing this in.
Right, still too wide, still too wide,
but I'm hesitant to get it drastically narrower. So I'm
just going to kind of slowly,
you know, kind of carve in.
That's the problem. I couldn't even see the thumb because it's
not light enough. It's just going to start with that.
Figure out what to do that later.
Overall though I think there's a general placement. I'm just
going to get a little bit more information down here right so
that we can kind of
be consistent, right so that everything is sort of equally
more or less
modeled. Not to say that's where it will end or that there won't
be any changes
but see so this hour that we've spent just focusing the bit by
bit is much closer to the way that we have worked up to this
point.
Time is always the be spent on sharpening.
But now with these sharpeners you don't spend that much time
sharpening.
That's my Ovaltine commercial
for those have seen The Truman Show.
Okay, excellent. So now we've had a break, fantastic.
We'll figure out what to do with the foot.
One doesn't really need a foot to draw the foot. We'll figure
that out later.
Have erase.
We'll get to all the details when we get to them. Overall I
think
Amy on this page
is kind of where
she needs to be. And now let's see both of our models
together after the break.
I'm going to see if I do in fact want to change this arm,
I might.
And then we'll do this like the same kind of refinements that
we did here on Jonathan, maybe spent a little more time on the
head,
and see where we go from there.
back together,
work a few more details, but also now step back a little bit
and begin kind of re-evaluating the entirety of the
paper again. So if you guys are ready.
I'm also - so
in the course of the break we did see what would happen if
this arm went up and at the moment I'm not
satisfied
with what I saw. I actually think what I have on the on the
page is more interesting
then what I thought would happen, but I also I'm trying
to come up with something to fill this particular space up
with as well. So I'm thinking maybe some cloth.
Will be good for that. So excellent.
Oh fantastic.
And now we're really getting a lot of clarity on that cast.
Like
this is a minor sort of adjustment. But I think it's
perfect for what we need. Absolutely. Perfect. So let's
start working on Jonathan.
All right, excellent. So what's happening, right, is a little
bit more of a turn now. This shadow is no longer imagined or
it's everything up there is excellent, but little bit more
of a turn
which is great for some of this light falling
on the leg.
That cast shadow that initially was invented no longer is which
is nice.
So we can really establish a connection between
the foreground and background if you will.
But also I'm getting a tiny bit of light on the other leg.
The area at the back of the knee.
I don't know how much of that I'll need though. That's a
separate question.
But if we bring this down also, right, perspective we'll have to
see where this is going to take us in the meantime just
going to unify everything down here for a second.
That as a shadow is working very very well.
The arm here
also,
there's a little bit more of a clarity on the terminator on
the arm.
And the
elbow, the olecranon.
I
could very clearly see the anconeus here as well as the
lateral epicondyle
of the humerus.
And that wonderful
half tone on
the bronchial radialus.
All right, so I'm just kind of going over everything right
now.
Overlaps I'm not afraid of outlines.
But I am very interested in - you can see the
medial epicondyle too
so erasing it would be great on the following some of these
shadows, cast shadow on it core shadow here.
Wonderful.
Right, but
we're not totally spending all of our time re-evaluating
everything. We are refining.
More of this movement here, right? So I actually like I'm
seeing
the gluteus
sort of little more angular and then this leg can come out
more.
Oh, that's good.
That's good.
Aall this is one go, one go. down.
Yeah, even that tiny bit of light right there clearly
smaller than what I actually see
is good. I'm actually thinking
we'll probably have a drop cloth. We do have a cloth right
but we'll
enhance all this. I don't want to spend this time now.
Establish some pile of cloth, you know cloth here. I mean
you can kind of more or less invent it.
We'll play around with this.
So that there's something going on down there that's a little
more interesting right?
But at
the same time we have to see how much of the leg we're going
to expose. So a part of why this is happens I think that
there's sort of been a slight change in the weight
distribution, which I think is to our advantage. So I'm going
to combine the light that I see with the new weight
distribution.
Now I'm just going to try this. This is
just a different color, this is crazy.
Oh, yeah, look at that.
That's intense. So what if I subdue it though?
What if it's hardly noticeable?
All right, so then we can head of cover it enough. Right? So
it's just a darker area there.
I think it's creating more atmosphere.
Interesting, good, then it's probably the way we'll go in
some ways, right, we'll kind of keep adding it.
For example on this elbow adding a little bit of that
color on a smaller scale might be very helpful.
The key is don't let it be obvious right? It's just
supposed to feel like a darker value without actually -
Oh, look who we have here.
Momo's going to be part. That's Momo by the way. Everyone Momo
is going to be part of the course. I think we're adding
Momo
to the corner of the -
hey Momo what's up? I'll use you to smudge.
So
I think
I don't know how long you're going to sit here and don't lick my
pencils. All right you go,
but thanks for visiting.
All right on that note.
All right, see so just adding that bit of darkness really brings
out the elbow, fantastic. We definitely need this.
Right. There is a sort of a rule
that if your painting isn't that interesting just add a
dog.
You can go to the museum and see this like the painting
itself is probably pretty like who needs it, but then there's
a dog in the corner or something and like wow that thing
really has life. So I think that's the -
everyone always love dogs, I think.
All right, excellent. Yeah that as a darker value is very
helpful. This is clearly not enough in this area, but it's
definitely a nice addition.
All right. Let's get a little more clarity on those
abdominals.
So I have these pencils.
They all kind of look the same
but they're all a little different. There's one
that's a little more brown one more of a red.
So the 655 I think is the bit more of the red in case you're
interested in purchasing the CarbOthello
pencils there. We work very very well and you can keep
layering them, which is not something I can say for Conte.
So yeah now right just getting into that hatch being very
light with it.
So right, the ribs, the ribs, the ribs.
Extending this light into the top of that part of the triceps
would be great.
But yeah, I am talking about adding these
brighter
areas, but also toning them down with the changing
color
and I think that that works definitely, the elbow worked in
the background. So it's going to be interesting to see how we
can apply that on a larger scale, in the meantime
we're still trying to get some information
on the page, right? So once we're kind of okay and
everything is sort of evenly
modeled, which is
also have to remember not exactly what we want. We don't
want an even modeling.
Right under the
external oblique, right, a little area that's flatter and brighter.
This is getting a little bit more complicated, right because
I have some of the darker color on my hands. So as I smear with
my hands,
I'm incorporating more so I have to be a little bit careful
because if I over incorporate it then the whole thing becomes a
darker value and then we're in the same place that we were,
right, so we don't want that.
But yeah, I'm just going to spend a little bit of time
modeling along these areas. This still
the same, that's right and maybe enhancing like here I can push
this tone more because I think it's the -
trying to find what I used to smudge with now here's -
because that is the rib cage, right? So it's kind of -
we get a little bit more of a feeling there for that mass of
the rib cage before the oblique.
I'm going to keep this sharp.
And then soften that edge maybe slightly but in general right
keeping that sharp will be nice,
this movement. I like more and more right? I like more and
more this leg coming out to here.
Which of course slightly changes
certain tilts, but because they're covered by the arm we
can kind of ignore them a little bit, right?
Right the gluteus on the engaged leg now, the other one,
is a little more compressed.
While the one
on the
relaxed leg is of course relaxed
but higher.
But higher. At the same time
let's not forget the general tonal placement of things.
We can knock that back a little bit
and then pick out what we need.
Look at that. That's awesome.
We'll reintroduce the shadow there later.
At the same time, I do want to go up here
and switch to a pencil that maybe has a little bit more umph like
that nice small shadow
kind of at the origin, right, that line
of the
posterior
deltoid as well as the top of the teres major.
Right hardly noticeable.
But just adds that bit of accent.
And also I'm not afraid of a little bit of a more textural
application here.
Look at this whole part right, that kind of indentation under
the spine of the scapula, marvelous. So some of these
things just have to observe.
Of course, where would we be without the scapula itself?
So we need to accent that, that's maybe too sharp.
Not hard to knock back but that scapula right? I'm just so as the apple right? I'm just so as
I kind of go into and continue modeling, I am trying to
enhance some of these contrasts and we're going to do that
globally, but at the moment I'm doing it locally.
Get a little more light on the
spine of the scapula there.
This is an important area that really needs to be modeled
and we can see a lot of what's going on there so let's model
it.
And as you see I'm probably going to move up
to spend some more time on the head.
And was extremely important for me to have both of our
models up at the same time because a lot of these things
that have been moving around
I need to find again
in relation.
Like from one model to the other, right?
You know occasionally go back and we get a little bit of a sort of
clarity here and there.
Why not?
Right I also need some unification
in the back.
I'm losing a sharpness here on my 655, the more red one.
So I'm going to sharpen it.
And keep working. Look at that.
Right, kind of - but look at how clean and completed a small
hatch looks on top of
a surface that has been as rubbed in. This is the
interesting thing to think about, right, like those early
parts, right where you're just rubbing in
everything.
You're actually contributing to how these things will look at a
later point in the process.
Now
this isn't something you can do kind of indefinitely
right, because the paper has a
breaking point,
but I have found that it's way past
what you might think.
So we're getting
a little bit of
the brachialis
or is that even potentially just the biceps,
might be just the biceps here.
I'm using the eraser to just get a general lighter value
but also an integration of the medium
softer tone there.
I do like this.
Oh man.
Good. Good, good, good.
And there we have our break. Since we are being very
specific
I'm going to take that break as well and keep
working on the shoulder, move into the head, also possibly
increasing some of those contrasts because I like how
it's looking, it's really pulling everything out from the
background. I think it's on its way. I'll see you It's on its way. I'll see you
in a second.
Let's get back to it.
Just going to continue working on the shoulder between working
on the
on the head. Actually do some work on the head.
What is this? This is this is very brown. Excellent.
Fantastic.
I don't know the amount of pencils I can fit behind my
ear I don't think it's that many. So stick with it. they stick with it.
All right.
Okay.
Not
perfectly comfortable, but it's something.
Let's follow that light on the
sternocleidomastoid.
Maybe knock it back with a little bit of
tone there.
Right just that front plane, which happens to be in a darker
value, but then look at all this coming from the back.
And look at the particular shape of that shadow, which
gives us the form of the trapezius.
Right. It's the shape of the shadow gives you form, it's
precise. It's not random.
It is
the way that light hits an actual
anatomical element.
Bring it back.
Okay.
So yeah, there's a little more clarity there. We can actually
see the trapezius.
Also climbing up higher makes me - I'm able to see a little bit
more which is nice. There's that plane of the top at this,
top part of the
spine of the scapula.
Going to rub that in.
More light there and you can see that light on the side plane of
the thyroid cartilage.
All our lights are on the on the side planes here because
the head is turned.
And then right here, right, you can see
that kind of movement of the forms underneath the mandible.
All right, and they are
structured by the digastric
which goes from here, right, to the hyoid and then to the chin, the
digastric
is a good muscle to be aware of that,
of that collection of them, right? There's a lot of these
here that are sometimes more confusing than helpful.
But not that one.
Keep stepping back, keep taking a look.
Let's just figure out what was happening with the ear, right,
what's happening with
the crura of the helix.
Sorry, antihelix.
Most of the ear will be modeled in highlights though because you
can see immediately of the highlight on the lower crus,
highlight of the upper crus going all the way down along
the antihelix, highlight on the tragus
and I'd even put a little bit of one on the helix
itself.
And then just knock them back see and that already looks much
more like an ear, you're kind of defining it with highlights. Oh
boy.
If using a ladder make sure not to fall.
All right, the concha in shadow more or less or
concha.
And that cast shadow
on that triangular fossa in between the two crura
I know this is kind of a lot of
time even you might even say to spend that on an ear
and
something as sort of intricate and complicated as this right,
the ear doesn't seem to be that important but
it's to the side plane. We have that nice cast shadow from the
ear defining the ear. All right kind of establish that feeling
of light a little bit more.
Interesting
I'm gonna climb higher.
Out of control.
And this I won't spend that much time up here, but I just
need a little bit more information on the head. Right?
So the other option is, of course, you can move the
large paper or you can just climb up and down. In a sense
there's something that comes with just
moving closer to the part you're working on while working
on it
there's
an advantage to this, right, because then you can always
climb back down and look at the whole thing again as you're
used to seeing it, right, at the proper angle.
I'm not interested in overstating these things in the
face.
A little bit softer.
Ear itself.
All right, we're going to have a pass over all this but in
order for us to have a successful pass in which we
add a considerable amount of completion to these areas
then we need
to have something on the page already.
Okay climbing down.
Good. I like how the head's sort of knocked back.
And now from here actually I'm going to work on the head right
because there's some
issues of perspective that I want to - like I want
to preserve
a particular angle that I'm seeing the head at.
At which I'm seeing the head.
Now, of course we know from our experience that a portrait can
take as much time as the rest of this, so we don't need to
Spend that much time, but we just need to make it look
effective enough.
The hardest part might be those curls.
Time for a sharpen.
These CarbOthello pencils are good, but I think I'm going to
go through 15 of them by the time I'm done with this.
Okay, good. Good. Good good.
They're very soft that's why, which is, you know, why they're
good.
Look at that light of the zygomatic.
Side plane, right? So our light would be will not be on the
zygomatic process of the frontal bone.
It'll be on the eye and just
forms here will be knocked back,
turning.
I don't know how much I would need.
Huh? Okay.
Not bad. Now
just get this terminator softer, right, into the darker half tone
to turn that form a little bit more.
Just kind of remove that.
Get into some of this stuff right here, right, we can get - we
can see the trapezius.
The back of the head needs to be accented at least somewhat,
the trapezius we can see that and we can even begin to kind
of show a difference in value. Right, as I get into the
scapula on the other side. You don't overstate it but you do
need to have it and then
follow the spine all the way back. We're not going to see as
much of this because this part's foreshortened, but just enough
of these variations I suggest show
that plane of the rhomboids up there.
Maybe even kind of bring out the spine itself down here. I
can much
more clearly than before for some reason see
the actual end of the scapula itself. But keep in mind, I
don't want to add this bit of
a darker value inside the shadow, even if something seems
like a strong contrast. That has to only exist along the
terminator in key places.
Wrapping this back in is nice.
Bring this down.
And maybe even softening that out into the background. Fantastic.
See
yes as strange as it sounds to a compliment oneself.
I'm liking where this is going.
Good.
Now, let's carve out 655 or five or
679. Who knows, who knows? Let's use what we got,
right? Let's extend that darker half tone off of the terminator
on the triceps.
Good
and let's get back into some of this information.
I think in terms of sharpness.
Why not? That is effective.
Extend that out to there, knock that light back.
Right get that sharp edge because it's really reading.
Is that too much? Yeah.
So sometimes this thing is helpful not in smearing but in
actually lifting.
Wonderful.
Enhance this light, but maybe that's not actually
happening. But this contrast on the elbow,
I feel like that needs to be there.
Now
this whole part needs to be really really crisp.
At that edge of the arm against the torso.
Really crisp.
And of course there's more to do on the
arm here, on the hand. I'm going to get down to
little bit back to the gluteus here on that big shadow.
Large shadow of the form, you know, hatch, get some texture,
really feel out the trochanter.
Now of course things have changed a bit, right? The
leg is now not the engaged leg,
but that's to our advantage.
Can you get a light on the - oh, that's wonderful.
And I got rid of all that stuff that I just called wonderful
and I'm going to bring it back.
Getting that light on where the trochanter should be.
Nice.
Right we kind of move this.
I think it's quite effective.
Okay,
okay.
Things of course -
we'll keep exploring what is effective and what isn't.
That little bit of space then we're down. Down to there.
Cool, cool.
The back needs to end.
So we need to find it. Maybe just as a line can be quite
effective
and
sort of an homage to my education
where we use a lot of these lines
to kind of lock in a form.
I'm keeping all that for now. I'm not too worried about that.
Look at that you can just totally see that tension in the
deltoid. My eye caught it and I feel like why not add a little
bit of that.
Huh interesting, interesting. All right, cool. Let's move on
to the head down here a little bit because clearly
everything
on Jonathan's a little bit sort of all of a sudden
worked to greater completion than anything on the Amy. So we
get back to here.
Oh, right at the time of the break.
So when we come back
we'll do some
work on the portrait on Amy.
Then we will re-establish our main contrast, figure out what
to do with everything down here,
see where we are at that point, and then begin a pass all over
again polishing everything as we go. I'll see you in a few.
Welcome back guys.
655.
Good. Okay, because I like everything we've done here like everything we've done here
over
with
Jonathan here. I think it's actually it's looking
quite good and like I'm already seeing that the
next pass might not need to be as
intense really.
But you never know until you get there. So I'm not gonna
pretend to know what I'm talking about at this
point. So, okay, so let's get,
all right. Excellent.
Maybe a smaller eraser here.
And just specifics right? Just let's see if we can kind of get
everything up here, right, clavicles to kind of the same level of it to kind of the same level of
completion
as up there.
Just going to keep working on these sort of large -
the small areas but comparing them to
each other.
Even
highlights there.
Why not? That could be effective.
Right just piece by piece.
Now keep in mind right on time,
I'm working here kind of in the way that
I have been
throughout this course,
you know, in the way that
I worked in the academy. Kind of a larger treatment
of things starting on the outside and moving in,
things like that.
And what's interesting with that
is that it would have been an interesting experiment to work
the other way on something so large, right, to take one small
area
and almost
complete it.
And then add
around it, you know piece by piece until this whole thing
comes together composing as you go.
Now, of course, that's not the academic approach, but it's
definitely something to experiment with
later on when you're feeling a little more comfortable.
Now I'm going to cut this eraser.
I like what's happening here.
Make sure your tools are always up to par.
Soon as you feel like the the pencil isn't as sharp as
it needs to be, the eraser isn't as sharp then you can the sharp. Then you can't
really move. I mean you could of course move on
but why would you?
Take that time
to get everything in order.
But using these highlights to define the forms, right because the
forms are softer.
So the highlights
will play sort of slightly larger role.
Let me establish the glabella.
Oh my God.
The eraser's making a very annoying sound.
So it's a great eraser because it's sharp, but I just - I'll do
what I can without it then I'll use it later.
Feel free to move what you need to move.
If you're off like the center line of the face was a little
bit off so
I don't want too much information inside the shadows
of the face. And if we show them, show them with a darker value.
Just enough of one
to just outline some of these things.
Look at how far off - I mean could have been that I was the could have been that I was
somewhere here, but I'm interested in changing that.
I've no problem changing that.
Find the center line of the face.
Keep in mind right, I'm not looking for a perfect likeness.
Reestablish the center of the upper lip so that you can
carve
the rest of it.
That's a change I like but it's still sort of simplified a
little bit. Everything is
getting a little more specific, but
now let's get to
the
core shadow on the lower lip.
The occlusion shadow in between the length of the line of the
lips.
Amy;s eyes are not as dark a color as I'm making them
here. So let's bring them up in value.
Light on the features, but then going back
cast shadow from the lips on to the chin, ignore the
information within the shadow right? Kind of keep it simple.
Keep it flat.
Once again, even if I'm slightly off the
proportions, right? If the
distance between the lips and the base of the nose is
slightly off
I'm not thinking about that that much, there's a
simplification here, which I'm after.
While still having sort of a structured head with feeling of
light on it, right? That's the other part.
Highlight on the nose.
And you know and of course everything I'm saying now might
slightly change and I might decide that we need might decide that we need
actually little bit more information in these areas.
But that'll sort of happen when we kind of go into a
second pass on everything.
I don't know. Maybe we've already done the second pass.
Maybe this is
going to be a third pass.
But I'd like to consider it
a second pass.
All right here cool. There's some highlights there. It's
good
if it's quite
effective using the eraser.
Knock - oh boy. Then I'm gonna knock it
back a little,
possibly
we can show it with contrast from the outside as
opposed to inside.
I don't know.
Maybe the whole thing softer,
but that's something we will
be working on soon. We will be working on those
large
relationships
in no time.
Let's get that zygomatic arch. Arch.
Sort of characteristic, right, the shape of her
faces is appearing.
Maybe a light on the neck even though it's too bright.
Interesting, interesting.
Right you can see that, the ridge, the
ridge of the orbits.
Let's get this softer.
A little bit softer and then let's make sure this shadow
reads
with the clarity it needs to.
I'm not making it - there's a bit of light right there that I see
now.
I don't know how much I need it. So I'm not gonna worry
about it too much.
This side maybe we'll show it with little bit of a light.
Okay, okay getting somewhere.
Getting somewhere.
The ear's almost entirely and shadow, so we just have to hint
at it.
Size of the head
looking okay.
Find where the chin ends.
I think the two heads are sort of comparable in their level of
completion. Now I've decided to actually add that bit of
light right here because I think it gives us a cleaner
structure of the front plane of the face.
Maybe some of you were thinking that at home.
Okay, pushing these highlights just a bit more. This is too
much.
But these are fine.
Then we can work inside the shadow to just establish the
mandible and I'm going to bring it back into
the sternocleidomastoid here.
And that crease.
Now we're getting into specifics. I couldn't help
myself. But I did say earlier that we needed
pretty much the same level of completion as that shoulder
on Jonathan.
Right highlight on that
clavicle
up to the break in the clavicle.
A little bit more light down here.
Hmm, but there's that gap, the gap.
the infraclavicular fossa, and it's in some ways its
continuation, right, the gap between the the pectoralis of
the deltoid.
It needs to be clear.
But something like this cast shadow
we can add in almost a separate color
and then let it
trail off just a little bit.
I'm just not I think it's the edges of this clavicle
that aren't reading as cleanly as they could.
Sternal notch
and the clavicle here needs to be a little bit more
outlined and shown possibly just with the highlight.
Oh my God does time fly.
Slowly, but surely.
So I think
we spent a little bit more time in these areas. Right? So it's
kind of a pass on these things. Just taking some of
these parts and making sure that they read like we want
them to, more or less than we want them to, before we kind of
re-establish the general
proportions if there are any like real errors
there we'll go over them.
And also, of course the placement of contrasts,
interaction of foreground and background
both in terms of just the relationship of Amy to
Jonathan but also to the background itself, there's a
lot to do still.
And it's fun.
So
let's take a break and
we'll be back soon.
with the large tonal relationships, how we can sort
of recompose everything if you will. Alright, let's get
started on that.
Because in terms of how - where everything is in terms of the
amount of completion, accents within individual parts I'm
quite happy. I think there's a lot that's already here.
Right now though, it's more about figuring out the
relationship of
the values in the background. This for example, I
like right because I see a very strong dark against light
contrast. This becomes an accent that works wonderfully.
Now, I generally don't use kneaded erasers, but I think
it'll help me right now right to just move around some tone.
I am also curious to see how -
interesting.
Okay, so my first problem is this.
Because at this edge, I'm not satisfied with having a light
area that's creating too much contrast. Now, of course, it
doesn't need to be that dark. But even that I like, right,
so I'm using a paper towel.
A blue one, you know the ones that - it doesn't matter.
Alright, just kind of moving tone
around a little bit, getting it
little bit flatter, a little bit straighter
along the background.
Right kind of - and of course if we use the eraser to carve we're
going to get -
we're going to have to reapply all this a little bit but you
can see how this now becomes a nice contrast and so does this.
Now I also - I threw some cloth, some more cloth down there. So
I'm going to hint at where everything is, right. Just I am
worried about more about composing everything than
anything else. So
right more of this as a darker value
in here.
And
then the red, right, so that it's not just the brown.
And then getting it smooth.
Probably this needs to be done a little bit more locally.
Right introducing the brown
into here because I like this as a contrast to shoulder but
it's a darker value. So in order for the shoulder to stand
out the values aroundthe shoulder need to be even darker
than that, right? So it's all relative.
Good. I'm sort of just kind of squinting at everything. Oh,
look at that.
I don't know if that did much for me.
Yeah doing a little bit more locally that
sort of an arm workout.
Nice and strong contrast there. I also like this contrast
though, right, this whole contrast of the shoulder
against the background
I think is quite effective.
Cool. That almost has a sort of painterly effect right,
due to the application. I don't know if I'll smooth that out
and then reapply later.
I might.
I might not smooth it out at all. Just kind of clean up the edge. You
can see how that totally brings attention to the shoulder now.
So yeah, this is kind of like we're thinking the same way we
did when we started.
Right large proportions and
large tonal relationships now, we're not thinking about
proportions as much but if something does appear that
seems
like we need to address it, we do.
Here I'm going to lock this in from the other side.
That's why as you see
I sort of blow the
dust particles off and that's probably why I end up
coughing them out later,
after
I get home.
Interesting right, to separate now that arm and that
leg, right, most of these contrasts I think should be in
here, and of course we're going up to have to accent things away
from this
main area of interaction between our models.
I think the interesting thing is that the interaction is not
exclusively,
you know as if they're having a conversation or something, the
interaction is also
just the placement on the page, the placement of accents.
It's kind of the interaction in the language of
the medium.
Not only in the language that, you know, of actual human
interaction.
Kind of knock that back a little bit, right, and you can
see I'm already beginning to establish some
accents. Now, you can see this is done relatively fast. Now in
school we spent most of our time on this,
this was the hardest thing
to learn.
And a lot of it is picked up somewhat intuitively. Right?
You're doing so much of it
that you end up having to - like it's something that you
pick up with intuition as
you realize what's creating the effect that you want, right? So
if the effect is some kind of atmosphere then that's what
happens,
if the -
if it's just accenting a certain line, then that's what
you do.
And for this, you know, step back.
I think something is happening. I'm -
this right here is interesting to me.
I think it can be enhanced.
All right, kind of push that far shoulder, like reduce the
contrast on the far shoulder
even further.
Good and also kind - it kind of continues that diagonal
movement on the page.
All right. All right. All right, not bad. Not bad.
Of course, maybe a little bit more information on the hair
actually, right, the kind of end the -
like to establish where the top is.
Cool
That worked.
What else are we doing? All of this right here, right, so
let's see what will happen with that cloth and it's a little early
for me to tell though, but I still need to do some stuff
here.
Now, I do think because the head on top there is not as
emphasized. It's emphasized by it's the fact that it's in
profile more than anything else really. This head
Needs to stand out.
So creating a dark enough contrast you can see
is crucial and see she actually begins to emerge from
the background. Also this because it looks lighter, which is
good.
See I'm sort of - I'm not smearing it. Because I want
to leave a little bit of texture and preserve that
that contrast and not smearing that also because just here
has been so smooth that why
overstate that, you know?
You know like why smooth out everything in one area,
right, kind of
give it some contrast between
foreground background.
But not as much.
All right good.
All this probably
needs to be more neutral,
does not need to have
so much contrast, but also, you know, this could be a bit
softer. Just kind of hinting.
I'm going to get a tone there but look how light that is,
hardly any darker than the paper itself.
Good.
Maybe that arm needs to sink into the background and the just the
hand comes out, I don't know yet.
Okay.
Right now I'm doing the opposite, now I'm just showing
the back of the head with getting a little bit of a
lighter value in the background and I don't know if I'll keep
that because I mean I definitely won't keep this, but
I will see
how much of it.
Cool, that's achieving something.
No,
this thing is good, but
it sometimes removes more than I want.
Okay, okay, okay.
I'm sorry. I'm off all cameras now, but I just need to
step back far enough to see. I think it's beginning to happen,
right, like I'm beginning to see
the torso on
Amy here in a way that I didn't before, right, now clearly
there's a light in relation to the values in the
background.
Okay now clearly I think the center, the compositional
center of the paper,
is just a little more resolved. Right just as from a
contrast standpoint,
at least when it comes to the background.
I think that it could be a little bit more resolved
when it comes from just with the values of the internal
areas, right so it can bring that shoulder up a little bit.
Once again
adding information there. This needs to be cleaner, probably
flatter.
So if it's flat and a single value that's not
sort of made darker than it needs to be it'll read a bit
lighter than if you have a lot of stuff going on in there.
Just keep that in mind right a flat
value, a larger of the amount of a value is very
important to how you perceive that value.
So a small area will always look
more contrasty than a large one.
I don't know if contrasty is the
proper term though.
Okay, so
I think we need some accents down here. Right? So this this
knee.
Nice right? Now, we're sort of taking our attention away from
this whole part where obviously we need to focus most
of our attention, but we can't - we need sort of an accent to
take your attention away from the primary emphasis, right? So
a secondary emphasis
to just move your eye around the page a bit more is
fundamental
to experiencing
a work in its entirety.
I'm sure they have a device I could use for that. But
I'll use the old the old fashioned one.
Okay, so
Maybe too much in terms of texture right now you can do
this at the very, very, very end. But I think you run
a risk when you do that. I think in some ways you're going
to do that anyway, but you need to -
you need to have the -
like
as you work these larger relationship you end up killing
a lot of the details that you might spend some time putting
in so and that's okay. The only problem is that it would be
nice if you do this earlier then have time to put that you then have time to put
the details back in if you see if you need to and sometimes
you won't need to so just that's why I'm doing it at this
kind of intermediary point
in the process.
Now I'm losing the outer form here.
Good a little bit right so I'm going to find a darker value in
there. Maybe even add a little bit of the brow.
Nice,
right so that we get a little bit of a transparency in the
shadow.
Huh interesting that adds a bit of a
decorative quality
that I'm not sure I'm into. It's cool,
but I don't think it - I mean and I would use it.
I don't necessarily think it works
as I intended it to and not in the sort of the format that we
have, like we have a lot more of a certain kind of imagined
atmosphere here, right this like moving areas just directly
into the background.
So I'm not so sure that what I did just here, right, unless I
soften that enough is going to look convincing and yet and
yet I see that the end of the form is there.
Probably we're going to need to still work along that
terminator, adding some some stuff there. Okay,
the knee's accented.
I'm not going to do anything until I get to -
though I do want to keep coming back to those clavicles. At
the same time I'm going to get a little bit of this cloth.
Right so you got fold in there
kind of
spiraling its way down a little bit and then
a drop cloth down there.
You definitely don't need to be
very literal with this cloth. That's definitely not the idea.
Now
depending on
Amy's pose at the moment there's possibly more of a shadow from
here.
I think that's good to have
and we'll find a way to unify that shadow with the leg itself
eventually when we get back into details.
All right. All right. There's sort of
I don't know how
much are those highlights on this cloth are really
necessary but you know, it's got to be interesting is that
cloth beginning to fall, right, kind of some darker shadows in
there. This is nice.
You could just remember when we did cloth,
all those, you know, kind of just same principles
of casts,
light and shadow,
and always variation.
Cool
and probably here right there is this cloth
in here.
Just has to be enough. It just has to be enough to work
with, possibly enhance. This is
the fabric itself doesn't really have that many
highlights on this side, but probably just increase them. And
keep in mind I'm just laying this in right now just for
general proportions.
That's a break.
I'm going to keep doing a little bit during the
break on this cloth, right, because that cloth does not
necessarily require models to be there.
But it's nice to see it.
Question is how distracting is it?
Right, kind of reinforcing that hand. Don't worry too much
about it now.
But I'm just need to step back
little bit more and
kind of look at everything from afar. I think there is
definitely a mood, there's an atmosphere. There's a
foreground and background though I can still keep
pushing that
and I will,
it's minor.
I don't know if I need such a strong contrast on the
edge there, but
a little bit more of one is not going to hurt.
Here too I just need to get into that shoulder. The
shoulder is one of the more important sort of
compositional
areas, right, this emphasis on this shoulder.
We will keep pulling that out of the darkness as we go.
All this stuff underneath,
maybe this edge look at how that's going to - I mean obviously
too dark, but
just to make that as just hint at the occlusion shadow,
knock it back
could be good.
Probably a shadow
under the hand.
And now it's more of a sort of an improvisation on a theme.
A large sweeping bit of cloth there
with a couple of creases on the
main area of the sort of internal plane change of the
thing.
All right, cool. But let's think of some internal motion
too, right, to that leg. Maybe we can kind of pretend
that there's a continuation there that leg except except
move it,
right? So it doesn't fall on the same line. So it doesn't
look like this thing is in fact transparent, even though we
played around with that earlier in the process.
Cool, good. I like I'm seeing.
All right, good. Those lines a little too parallel. So now this is two parallel. So now this is
just an exercise in composition.
Now it's not so parallel, now they taper. they taper.
Interesting.
I'm not going to worry about too much about this part
because it kind of needs to be structured at the same time as
the hand, right, because it shouldn't be over modeled
because then it'll take away from the hand.
Everything down here probably flatter.
Probably flatter.
if you can see me clearly and see that I'm pretty much
horizontal, almost laying on the floor and
I'm hoping you're enjoying the process is actually as
active.
Okay, so a little bit - I see a lot of once again, but a lot of
the values are a little bit even.
They're a little bit even
and yet the cloth is
definitely a little more of an element. So
what if we can make some of this lighter?
And how light can that be?
We can even kind of slightly imagine
some more highlights
there.
But why not?
Looks like
you know kind of a small collection of large half lock,
right? We're not getting the other side to make it a full
diaper,
but it is sort of a half lock.
I'm not actually looking at anything, even though I do look -
see that's weird too right because I keep looking.
Welcome.
And our models are back.
Looking cool.
Yeah, I think there still may be a tad -
there's a little more variation, it's still a
little bit of distracting.
Some small crease in there. We'll get that to work, right?
But that's fairly nice. Actually why not wrap it
around making it
flow too close to the edge, but if we just continue the action
that's kind of fun.
That's kind of fun.
Now, of course, right, the more you add, the more you have to
think
in sort of larger
relationships.
And now I can
kind of a take this cloth that I've half observed half
invented
and see where it takes me.
It's the bottom that matters, right? So just ending this
would be good. Maybe cast shadow onto the ground there.
And now there's sort of a rhythmic movement along the
bottom of the paper.
Now is that enough?
I don't know. I don't know.
I need to step back for a second and kind of assess
the whole situation.
All right, so I think it's all right for now.
I think what actually needs to happen is now let's re-evaluate
those large relationships up top again,
right, in relation to the cloth at the bottom. This shoulder
probably.
Kneaded eraser is good for this because it keeps a lot of
what I have in terms of information that kind of just
very lightly hatch over later but that shoulder I'm going to
really pull out in terms of contrast. Good.
The pectoralis here,
definitely an accent.
And possibly even brighter in some of these areas even though we
know
you can knock them back and really make sure that this
is the brightest area in the thigh. thigh?
Interesting.
All right. We don't want anything that bright though
because it's going to affect how we
later figure out our highlights.
Gonna extend this area as sort of a brighter light.
As as I said, we spent an enormous amount of time on
doing stuff like this.
So
if anything that could at least give a better idea
of the Repin Academy
in a sense from the inside based on what I'm talking about
then
it's clear immediately just by looking at the work that's
produced so you can see online, stuff like that, because a lot
of it you can't - you don't know.
And you usually see the final pieces
without the methodology that went into the education that
created those pieces.
So it's the search for like unity and in a sense sends a search for
simplification, even though a lot of the time when you look
at the final result kind of everything looks a little over
modeled, overemphasized and so on and that
our instructors they spoke to us about that something
absolutely necessary in the process of education
there was a weird - if you think about it's a weird combination,
right? You're sort of over modeling in order to learn
everything, anatomy and all that stuff, but you're also always
thinking of how you can
say the most with the least amount of information. So
like you're always thinking about an economy of means.
This is as an exercise also is kind of the most just
this -
this kind of approach is
just exhausting I think.
Right as we get into specifics again, we're going to -
we're just going to get more and more precise with where
all this is, where the lines are.
Like how the background actually comes up against a
form, just going to keep
sort of establishing large
areas of tone
where I can.
Right if you just squint this knee's important, but how important
right I think the contrast in the background is maybe enough
to make that stand out, right? So then here
the lower abdomen simply as bright as it is in relation to
this leg maybe,
cannot be
a highlight really, right, because our main lights are
higher up
on the
body.
This knee in general right probably
needs to go lighter.
Up close it's getting there.
This shadow
I will extend
lower, right?
And we'll get specific with that.
Of course those highlights on the foot are also not
highlights. Probably some information can be shown with
contrast.
Mmm good that is what I like to see.
There's a unity that's beginning to happen. The head though,
right you can see the head.
My main proportions are though I'm aware of it is the
width of the shoulders, I think.
So I keep altering it as I go slightly.
But I kind of feel like what I'm seeing. Now the head in
general right just lightly knocked back.
All right. We're still there.
Wonderful.
Right? In space we can probably enhance some of those contrasts
but then
just going to knock these lights back a
little bit, see how I like that. There's a unifying quality
that is really really good.
Allowing us to then come back in a little bit later
with some stronger highlights, but I think that
yeah, I like where that is now.
Looking at this arm.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, this worked, outlining the arm this worked out lining the arm
helped. Hmm.
Cast shadow.
I feel like this is an extra - like I'm exercising.
Good, and now we're getting that contrast, right? We're
getting like a sort of a like the contrast of the tone of the
skin a little bit more.
The light is still feeling a little bit even but that's
because I don't think we have enough emphasis on certain
areas.
See even that kind of helps, right, to kind of move this across and
pass into that knee.
I think the eye does move down. This of course will be unified
a little bit more. That was just a pass.
But in terms of just
how everything is composed -
could see that movement, that's excellent kind of
see what's going on in here a little bit clearer when things
move but
just gonna step back again, right? Just keep doing it as
long as you need.
There's definitely atmosphere now. There's definitely Now. There's definitely
atmosphere.
Some parts are lost a little bit, but we'll get them back.
I think that this stuff right here actually can maybe be on
the side here, maybe a little bit lighter, a little bit
flatter.
I don't know if the width of the shoulders off, but I'm not
so sure anymore.
We're going to
establish the trapezius there though a little bit more
clearly. Yeah, that general sort of diagonal have diagonal.
we have.
Yeah, the cloth at the bottom is the first pass.
Right just spend time thinking about, it's hard to
say something now.
But
I almost think we're ready for another pass at the form, at
the anatomy, right just kind of piece by piece
working to
try to get a little bit of polish.
Come back into all these parts we've already explored a bit,
but obviously can use a little bit more.
Little more unity there. Unity there.
Yeah, kind of going back into the terminators. Maybe refining
handthe
a little bit more. This line's bothering me again.
I might actually up until we take a break, I don't know how
long it is from now, but
then get into the
just gonna
step back from all these global considerations
and just get something more specific on this hand.
Right, clearly just by its placement alone
it's important compositionally.
That means it also needs to be
in a sense properly rendered.
And then accented again.
Right just work those shadows one phalange at a time.
The wrist,
the pinky can almost vanish into shadow as it did, you know,
it actually is doing a bit.
I'm interested in this, there's a shape here right between the
arm and a leg
that one accent right, and it makes the shadows a little more
transparent on the leg and focuses our attention into this
area.
And then I'm just going to carve out lights. I'm using
that kneaded eraser that I
don't often use.
Right when starting out just pay attention to right that overall
form, variation right, where each of like the tip of each
finger is
and of course
differentiate between core and cast shadow.
That's probably one of the most important things.
You know you can hint at a nail too it a nail to
because it gives you form.
Cast shadow.
Cast shadow from the pelvis. co-op.
Not exactly the color I was thinking.
Keep doing that.
It's fine.
The interesting part is that you know, there isn't anything
that's not reversible.
Everything is reversible, erasable. So on. That's kind of
one of the advantages of this approach in that sense it's
imitating oil even even more so in this respect.
Cool.
Gonna make sure the cloth around the hand is a darker
value but the hand stands out with that bit of light.
I'm curious how much - there's a bit of light on the fingertip right
there. How much of it are we really going to do? I don't
know.
Then in general and then you can see
I don't know
hands are an exercise in composition.
You know what would be the worst part is that if I then look and compare
the hand and the arm to everything else and I just I
think that
that's not the right placement. Just going to erase this whole
thing.
And that's a shame, right, because I spent all this time, but spend all this time, but
in a lot of ways
you sometimes need
to have some element a little more completed to notice that
it's not in the right spot.
To notice that it's
the wrong size for example.
Knocking it back in general is going to be helpful, though.
And that's a long needed break.
So I'm going to take that one,
though I kind of can't stop myself from
working here. But I'm going to take this break because
these sort of global considerations do take a lot
out of you. And then we're just gonna continue but not entirely
in the way that I anticipated. I thought we'd do a second pass
starting from the top and just moving it all the way down
again, but we're actually going to spend all of our time at
this point on
all of those main elements that we talked about earlier.
So it's hands, the knees,
the heads again, and the feet. And when they are sort of
brought to a polish,
we'll then go over the whole thing.
See you soon.
really try to polish very specific areas like hands,
clavicles again, these knees,
everything up here, and the heads of course. So let's get
to it.
And I won't be moving around so much.
Just have a seat,
use an eraser,
get everything nice and sharp.
The eraser here becomes once again one of our most important
tools.
So just in case you're wondering while watching this
Jonathan and I have agreed that
because keeping a hand in that position isn't
easy at all, since I'm not working on it at the moment
he's going to keep it down for now
until
I start working on it. So that's just something for you
to keep in mind that when you are working
with
people, you know, try to be as accommodating as you can be.
Yes, that
hand. Excellent. So yeah. So the question is that how much
information do we need on his hand. Now this is
not of course a portrait with hands where the hands are
really kind of a major part of the expression in a way, but it
is a important anatomical element. We're just going to go
from one to the other right now.
I'm going to come in close. We're really sort of slowing
down right now, right, we sped everything up
a little bit ago and now we need to slow down to get as
much
sort of considered information as possible. Now keep in mind,
right, these little areas I'm working on right these
areas
that are like the lights right up against those strong
cast shadows appear lighter than they are right because of
those strong cast shadows, because of those contrasts. So
maybe if you erase out too much and get them a
little too sharp then just make sure to come back in
and sort of see them in a larger context.
Right a hand isn't a hand unless there's a wrist,
even in such a situation as I have it here where the wrist is
of prime
importance.
Now there's always gonna be a little minor changes that might
be quite exciting, like now that light is back on the pinky, but
I don't know if I want it.
So I'm going to keep it in mind but not worry about it.
Here working in with a darker color,
working into the
parts of the hand that we can't see that are in shadow might be
helpful. So do keep sort of consider that, it's what
I'm doing a little bit.
Right just kind of getting that outline.
Good.
Here we can begin to see
the heads of the metacarpals and the tendons which
roll over them, right?
Now
this is an interesting
thing that's happening here. Right? I'm
working
on
the
details, right, so
I'm working on these specific elements.
And that's very important
to think about it because what usually happens is that arms
or rather hands
and all of that stuff is incomplete right up until the very
end, right everything else, you know, all this is what we're
focusing on.
And so
then you often - I often , I'm going to just be more
specific here - we run out of time and then have to figure
out how to do the hands in a lot and all the other stuff in
the last
like in the last half hour. So in order to avoid this,
it's nice to spend some time on it earlier, right, kind of like
the same just a kind of helping, you see that there's a way to
structure the process
a little bit more
so that you don't end up running out of time.
I'm even going to put - you can see right there, you can see it
tiny bit of a vein on the arm, and it's quite effective.
It's not
very clear, but
just
hinting at it might be helpful.
Just to make this come alive little bit.
Gonna move up the arm a little bit, right, just kind of begin to
really model.
And you can see that we're always - we're always modeling.
But clearly when something is as complicated that's not our
main -
like that's not the only thing we're focusing on which is
pretty much what we have been focusing up to this point.
There's more here, right? There's more of a
compositional approach
establishing what you really need.
Luckily, I have a chair on wheels so I can move around.
At this point keep things sharp.
As I've mentioned many times my teachers would kill me for
this.
But that's because they haven't tried this sharper.
I kind of follow along with the full form, right, the full
combination of the
that later end of the metacarpal.
And everything can coming down from there.
Kind of think of it as a tiny knee.
Here we're gonna be a little bit sharper.
Interesting that does have a sense of polish that I'm liking.
I'm gonna move up the arm a little bit.
Okay.
Now, where are we here?
A little bit of a crease
they're just
the oblique that crease of skin, which is really great
because it sort of gives us something a little more alive
but also hints at a forum inside that's
a little bit more of a part of the
of the pelvis.
Little bit of a light
there.
Knock that one back.
Okay, so that knee.
Amy I think the foot was - yeah if we can get back to
closer to the original position for at least while - it won't be
that long while I'm working on this.
Awesome, but
just keep noticing something about this hand.
Right, we'll go over
things again, right, and that's the interesting part about the
process that you don't ever really end up completing
anything
all the way.
You end up kind of pushing everything more and more and
more until you run out of time.
That's how I think of it.