Life Drawing - Week 3

This week we focused on lying poses; looking at foreshortening and how it effects our drawings. A lot of emphasise was put on the idea taught to us by Mik last week about looking at the body as a map and finding reference points in order to get the proportions and shapes of the body right. Mik gave us a demonstration about half way through the day of how to start looking at the body and where to begin our drawings. He explained it as an under drawing that once, you had drawn the form correctly, would be the basis for your actual drawing so could be very light sketch. He told us to hold our pencils at the end so we would get the very lightest of marks on the paper. This was really helpful; it made me realise that this was just the beginning of the drawing but it was the most important part because this was where you had to get the form and proportions just right because it will shape the rest of your drawing. Mik also told us to keep finding the form with straight lines to begin with and then once you were sure you had the put the curve in. You can see in my drawings that after Mik's talk I really started to look at shapes within the body and using points of the body to reference other parts.

I really enjoyed this week; I thought the poses we were given were interesting and it made me want to draw them. Although for some reason I found it much easier to start with the curve of the hips rather than the head. This week I tended to draw the head after I'd sketched out the rest of the body. I'm not too sure that that is good practise generally but it seemed to work for me. I really like the technique Mik has shown us; I find that I'm looking a lot more at the shapes of the body and my drawing and comparing. I'm much more open to changing my drawing if it's not right now even if I think that particular bit looks good on its own.  I can see a huge improvement from week to week and that's a really good sign.