With being the final week of life drawing and due to how few people turned up to the session, we were able to try something a little different with natural, flowing environments, taking careful note of the perspective and angle to then place a figure in what looks like his natural setting. This was incredibly enjoyable as environments provide far more creative freedom in both detail and overall scale, allowing me to attempt and then utilise a variety of new techniques.
Using charcoal as a basis for the vast majority, we were given 20 minutes to work on each setting with the goal of capturing the scene with only simple, basic details.
Unlike the vast majority of life drawing sessions where the first few images would look crooked, i used what i had learnt from my environment concept and development and general will power from four sleepless days to lay out the basic principles with rough black lines. Imagining it as a concept sketch, i focused entirely on proportions and areas of interest whilst leaving room to then build up with other media at a later date.
Overall, i believe that this was the best sketch of the day as i managed to create what looked like a full concept of a woodland road, taking in to account all the tree distances, widths and densities as they began to merge in to the forest. on top of this, i then managed to create a silhouette of Gordon standing at the front, holding his bow with excellent scale and proportions.
The second drawing was a little bit different but still had a huge emphasis on scale and proportions. We were shown a photograph of a hand holding a globe in its palm. With Gordon then posing in the centre of the room, we had to place him within the image in an effective and mysterious manor.
At first, i thought that the hands would have looked a bit disfigured but after some trial and error as well as basic lighting and shadow, i was able to create the base drawing with a large circle in the centre where the globe was located within the original image. This gave me a large, open space to then draw Gordon sitting inside the globe with the illusion of him being watched through some form of magical orb.
We were then told to experiment with finger painting, taking us back to our childhoods. This combined with abstract colour and Christmas music created quite a nice exploratory environment. With such a loose concept of merging Gordon in to a cloudy sky, we were really able to experiment with colour, smudging and general contrast to create a rather amusing product which captured the full emotion of the atmosphere around us.
It was an interesting idea and a lot of fun to experiment with but i don't think I'll be re-visiting this method in the future. Without the ability to correct mistakes or create fine lines, it made for quite an uncomfortable technique.
The final twenty minute sketch was by far the largest in scale which at first looked incredibly over-whelming but by just allowing yourself to entirely free your movements, sketching out each abstract detail with charcoal in the correct perspective felt incredibly natural. Starting with the main detailed foliage on the left, i began to build up the bottom half of the image, sketching a rough box and outline to show where the waterfall and general water flow was located.
After building around this, adding in rough details and emphasising key areas, i could then use the contrast of the white chalk to then build up the sharp lighting and water. With all the basic detail down, i could then start to incorporate Gordon in to the focus point; the great waterfall. As this was located in the direct centre of the image, i could draw his rough structure to scale, standing in front of the water fall using the sharp edge of the black charcoal.
After he was generally drawn to the same level as the environment around him, i switched back to the white chalk and began emphasising a few of his edges with rough lines to show where his body hit the flowing water. Using the side of the chalk, i could create a nice mist effect over his pose and then add some flicks of white travelling down, from his head to his knees which fully submerged him wit the watery backdrop.
I find work like this to be incredibly enjoyable and only wish that i could have attempted this prior in the year as the twenty minute time limits were no where near enough time to add the detail truly required to bring the sketches to life.
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