Monday, February 7, 2011

MORE FIGURES IN CONTE, WATERSOLUABLE CRAYON AND WATERCOLOR


The next exercise from the book is an easy one - just mark-making on the paper.  Using a large enough sheet so you can get the movement from the shoulder, not the wrist.


Then I took that idea of mark-making and reworked some quick sketches I'd done in my figure drawing sessions - was that a year ago or more??  Gosh, time flies when you're getting old.























I liked the roundness of the figure on the viewer's right so I made the figure on the left more angular.

Since I liked the figure on the right the most, I used it to begin another painting but I began the painting by using watersoluable crayons to draw the figure on the watercolor paper.  Then I played with the drawing a bit and added watercolors with a brush and kept going back in with the crayons. 

And this is what I finished with (yes, I know that arm looks weird and is not positioned correctly but accuracy isn't what this is about right now so I'm giving myself a pass on that one).



I'm never quite sure why I use the colors I use in these - it just seems to be an unconscious choice (but I have been reading a biography of Alice Need and she outlined her figures with black and then blue marks so maybe that influenced this one).  I've got blues and yellows and ochres and pinks and oranges in the body colors.

The background is conte crayon put on while the paper there was still fairly dry, mixed with some watercolor crayon that had been wetted down and blended.  I like the vibration of it.




Did "your team" win the SuperBowl?  I watched it - but just for the commercials :)

Did you see Nancy Standlee's torn paper collages all featuring SuperBowl stuff (helmets, shoes, etc.)?  Pretty cool. 

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I like the continued evolution of your figure drawings. Great job. I think I will post some too.

hw (hallie) farber said...

These figures are wonderful!

RH Carpenter said...

Thanks, Tim. It is an evolution and I hope it takes me somewhere good!

Hallie, thanks. I do enjoy figures but should try to get better at them - perhaps more figure drawing classes whenever spring arrives.

Jane said...

I like these figures..true the arm is not perfect, but there is an excellent shape of the bodies. Your blog always gives a lot of inspiration .

RH Carpenter said...

Jane, it was funny but I could not "see" what was wrong with that arm although I knew it was wrong - until I just scrolled down from the drawing to the "painting" and saw how high up I placed it! It's amazing what our eyes can - and can't - see at times.