Monday, February 21, 2011

BACK TO FIGURES

Neck is getting better - more range of motion and less pain :)  Now let's get back to the Expressive Figure Drawing exercises...

We're now learning about Mass.  Mass can be captured in a variety of ways.  You can evoke mass by emphasizing the large shapes, rounding the muscle masses with dark and light; or you can evoke mass by looking at the negative shapes around the figure.



The Mass Gesture Exercise tells us to go back to the sumi brush and ink (I used a watercolor round brush and watercolor pigment).  The author tells us to express the masses by darker and lighter use of the pigment.  Building the figure based on the brush strokes, you turn, twist and pull the brush around the shapes.  I did this twice and like my second effort best.







The Building Mass with Line Exercise was easy and fun.  With a ball point pen (I used my Tombow black marker), you do 2-3 of these side by side, building up the mass of the body gradually with squiggles and circles.  The author says to think building up the body with some material like clay or wool or wire as you do this.



Then we're asked to return to the conte crayon and do the Mass and Line in Two Layers Exercise - just what it says:  create the mass with the edges of the crayon, moving it, twisting it; then going back in and reiterating the lines around and in the body.  Don't care for this one but I think it's the material - I don't really like conte crayon for some reason.  It's a bit hard but also crumbly (if you press too hard on it) and I can't seem to get a light touch and still get a mark on the paper.  Maybe I'm too impatient to slowly build up tone with these.  






Before we finish with the section on Mass, we'll do one more exercise:  Mass and Line Drawing with Gouache and Water Soluble Crayon.


Then we'll move into the section on Line.


3 comments:

Carol King said...

fantastic figures. Thanks for the discussion on mass.

Sadami said...

Dear Rhonda,
I admire your hardwrok and really nice. Different approaches inspire me. Thank you so much. Please put your health first;).
Cheers, Sadami

RH Carpenter said...

Thanks, Carol. Glad you are enjoying the info from the book.

Sadami, you are a Sweetie! I'm doing well now.