Day Seven

You know how in drawing class at school they teach you to draw people by first making a few lines and circles and then filling in the details of the body around them? I never quite got that. I started drawing before I was taught that, and when I was taught it, I thought it was dumb (and/or more work) so I stuck with my own method. My method was working pretty well for me at the time, so why change? More accurately, I couldn't tell yet how my method was not working for me. My method was to start at one side of the person or object I was drawing, and draw in the outlines (in way too much detail), working my way over to the other side. I almost always ended up having the end lines not quite match up because something got skewed along the way. I'd either have to do a lot of erasing and redrawing, or I'd just fudge it and somehow make them match up, usually ending up with an oddly warped drawing. I'd shade it beautifully and meticulously and that usually hid the error in proportion enough to satisfy me.

All that to say that for my art requirement today, I practiced my gesture drawing, and tried to use those lines and circles. My husband was a dear and let me draw him- lucky devil just had to work on the computer, watch TV, and not move much. I pulled out my 18 x 24 newsprint and a pastel stick and got to work!

My first go was not what I would call successful. The couch is alright, the shirt & pants are pretty good, and I'm quite happy with the hair, but the face and hands... sigh. I really messed up on his facial features and when I went in with white to try to fix it, they just looked weirder. And the hands are kind of disproportional blob things.

My second go was much better! I'm actually really proud of those jeans, and I got his hair spot on. And look at that hand! Such an improvement. His face is still not right, but it's better. I'm quite good at drawing faces in close ups, but tiny features in a bigger drawing like this always mess me up.

I guess I need to keep practicing. If anyone follows this blog at any point, they may be seeing quite a bit of Mitch; he's an easy target for portrait practice.