Schedule 12

This week's exercise is mainly an extension to the drapery study last week, except now the drapery is wrapping around a figure. Was chatting to someone on this reddit thread and they mentioned photographing themselves posing for some of the exercises. That is such a fantastic idea. For the drapery-on-figure gesture studies, I set a webcam on video recording, then spend 2 minutes making about 50 poses. Then, I just pause between poses when I am drawing. You also get the added bonus that sometimes the transition between poses create fantastic gesture in the fabric.

I ran out of burnt sienna, so I did the modelled drawing in green. To my surprise, I actually quite liked it. Started doing daily composition from long-memory/imagination this week. It's hard to draw from imagination and I often sit there thinking for 10 min before doing anything. I need to just get on with it. For now, I'll do 1-2 composition from imagination and 3 from recalled memory. 

Schedule 10

I feel the 2 hour modelled drawing is quite good - it's nice being able to take colours away rather than having the whole thing blending into one giant lump. As per usual, I much prefer the gesture exercises. I had to force myself to plough my way through the modelled drawing. 

I started experimenting adding in shadows in the daily compositions - I feel it really helps ground the person into the scenery. 

Schedule 9

I am not sure if I understood this exercise correctly. From what I could gather, it's sort of like combining gesture with modelled drawing. It's pretty enjoyable. I still find it hard to not get influenced by the light and shadow when I'm doing the modelled drawing

Started exploring using some markers for shading the daily compositions. I quite enjoy the outcome but it really adds time to the schedule. At the moment I take about 15 min for each sketch, but shading would add another 5-10 min to it so I often forgo doing it.

Schedule 8

I struggled through each long modelling session, but the enlarged body part actually look so much more detailed and realistic than I would normally be able to draw. I guess that is the point of the exercise - to spend a lot longer looking and examining something.

I have also started putting all the horizontal and vertical daily compositions on separate pages.

Schedule 6

I am so bad at the right angle studies, but they are also so interesting. I would like to get good at it, and can definitely see the merit in it. I mainly rely on images on the internet for most of these exercises (which is not ideal, but I am assuming it's better than not doing the exercises). There are some sites with 3D models/scans, which is fairly good for the right angle studies. For instance, SketchFab (there are some free models, though I don't think there are many free human models) and Bodies In Motion (3D scans of people, but require membership/payment). Nicolaides has also said it's good to do the right angle study with objects, which I need to get around to doing. 

I don't think I really understood instructions for the watercolour modelled drawing. I ended up consulting the comments on this blog post on how it works, and I think it seems to work a bit better towards the end. I initially tried to treat it like a watercolour painting, which is not the point of the exercise at all.

Schedule 5

I'm 20% of the way through!

The modelled ink initially started off being an absolute pain, as per usual for the contour part of the exercise. It was only on the 3rd day that I realized - I am holding the pen incorrectly. In hindsight it should have been obvious, but if the drawing board and tilted towards you, there is the tendency to hold the pen almost horizontally (or even tilted upwards). That is not useful for the ink to be drawn out by gravity. After that little revelation, it was a lot smoother. I quite like the outcome from the modelled ink to be fair - it does look sort of 3D. The process somewhat reminds me of 3D pen. I've also recently started to read through anatomy books and that really helps keeping things interesting when scribbling away. The act of trying to identify and "feel" the muscle/bone bumps was good.

Daily composition is good, though I think maybe doing 4 from memory + 1 from imagination per day might be a bit of an overkill. Still managing it so far. I guess one of the problems with the composition from memory is that I remember vague scenes from many incidences, but none of them super clearly. I hope I am not stretching myself too thin. It feels that it's been easier to remember many scenes. I usually remember about 6 or 7, though the "ordinary" scenes (such as people having a picnic, couple walking amongst trees) are harder for me to remember.

Schedule 4

Memory drawing is so tough!

I quite enjoyed the other ones (though they're a little difficult with online photos rather than life drawing models), especially the descriptive pose. The descriptive pose and the reverse pose really forces you to think rather than just copy, which I think is much required for me. Sometimes my brain just wonder off when I am doing gesture drawing. The group pose is quite fun - I have never considered looking at the group as a connected unit and I think that conveys a better flow.

I re-read the daily composition exercise and think I missed a little bit of the instruction - I believe the exercise wants you to place the figure in relation to its surroundings, whereas I have been mainly trying to remember the figure, and just fill in the surrounding roughly from what I remember/imagined. However, I think we're suppose to see the whole thing as a unit, like the group pose. I try to pay more attention to the surrounding of the subject now.