Gesture

Gesture is very important in sketching and drawing the human form. This video talks about what gesture is.  These are very quick gesture poses. Do many on a page to save paper.  Ask a family member to strike a pose they only have to sit for 30 -60 seconds.  Practice, practice practice gesture.





h

Drawing hair

As with the mouth and the eyes, you are going to find that shading is everything. the more time you spend shading and the more value, from light to dark that you can get the more your drawing will pop off of the page.

Many times artist will spend a good deal of time on the face and then rush through the hair. Again you will hear the artist talk about value and shading.
    This one does not tell you what you are to do, but it is fun to watch and notice the value shading and very dark to light areas of the hair.

if you have the opportunity to practice drawing hair then certainly do so. I just want to be sure you watch these and see how much time goes into the hair.

Moving to the mouth.

Just like we worked on eyes, lets now take a look at the mouth.  Here is a great video. You might try this. As you look at the video notice that as soon as he goes real dark say around 10.8 in the video the lips begin to come off the page. Here again we are looking at what shading can do to make something Pop.  You will hear me use the word pop quite often. It simply means the work pops off of the page.

EXERCISE
Try this exercise. Then either try different expressions of your own lips or a page of different mouths. A good place to find them is in magazines.

You can also take your mom or dad's cell phone and take close up pictures of each family members mouth. Ask them for a relaxed mouth, closed and then a smile without showing their teeth. See if you can capture that.  

More on shading and eyes- exercises for you to do.

Shading is a very hard thing to get a handle on. It will only come with lots of practice. I realize that most of the tutorials that were in the last post on value and shading did not have any videos. I think, just as with our one on one class where you watched me draw, that  these videos help to understand more about shading. It is important to get the dark darks, and to transition into the other areas.

It takes time to train your eye to see the transitions, shadows and highlights.
I like the practice of drawing an eye. This is a good video and you can see how long it takes to get the shading just right. To build it up and blend it in.
Do This Exercise- Try drawing just your eye using a mirror and then shading as is done here.

 Here is another video of sketching an eye. This man uses the blending stump. Notice also how he has a paper towel under his hand. This is because the oil and sweat from your hand can get on the page and change the way the pencil will work on the paper.


 

 This is an excellent video that talks about the eye and the parts of it. I like this because the drawing video helps the student to become aware of the anatomy of an eye. It is hard to think that it is this huge ball in a socket in a skull.  This video also shows a side view of the eye.

 

 Since we are working with eyes I thought I would add this video.

"Eyes are the windows to the soul" 
William Shakespeare

Eyes  are what holds the expression. Learn to draw eyes and learn emotion in a art and you have a tool to capture your audience.

Do This Exercise- Use someones cell phone- Take 3-4 pictures of just one eye on someone's face very close up. Be sure you focus the picture clearly.  Ask them to give you different expressions. Mad, sad, surprised, happy an maybe the neutral eye.  Then try to use the techniques on this page to draw just this one eye in the 5 different expressions, using shading.

REMEMBER- this is not just about drawing. It is more about learning to see. 

 


 This is a good video for basic shading.


"Look into my eyes and hear what I'm not saying, for my eyes speak louder than my voice ever will."
Unknown author

"The face is the portrait of the mind, the eyes, its informers."
Latin Proverb

"The eyes shout what the lips fear to say."
William Henry

"The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secretes of the heart."
St. Jerome

Progress Page- Austin- July 7- July 13 2015

Austin "Before" 

June 7th Prior to meeting with Bridgette she asked me to draw a self portrait.  I did this. After a  week of instruction I did an another portrait.

Austin "After" 1 week of instruction

June 8th- 

Private session at Bridgette's studio.  Went through the website, learned how to follow the links and what a "self guided" study might look like.  Watched Bridgette do a sketch of herself as she shared what her brain was telling her, even when her brain would say negative things. 

I learned—

* not to name parts

* draw only what I see

* how to compare one thing to another. 

* learned "directional" shading
* not to outline

June 11th- 
I sketched my cousin- cheyenne at my aunts house

Giacometti- 
I watched the video and did research on Giacometti. Bridgette asked me to answer these questions.

• Look at the work in this video?  Do you think this is the type of work that Giacometti has always done? How has his work changed over his life time?  

Yes, because he has a whole studio of statues. In my opinion, his work has gotten more depressing over time. 

• Who is the artist?

Alberto Giacometti

• Did they go by another name?

No.

• How do other's describe their work?  Just jot down terms that others might use to describe his work. look for terms like "contemporary, abstract, etc " 

Formalist.  ( "Interesting" is my opinion.)

• When did they live? 

1901-1966

• Where did he live? 

Switzerland

• What is he known as? What other medium did he use? 

Swiss sculptor and painter. Cast metal, bronze, molding clay and stone

• What is your favorite piece or pieces? 

The walking man. 

• Why do you like those pieces?

I like his pieces because he takes normal daily activities and turns them into an extraordinary piece of art.  

Yes, I did go further- typed in google and looked at different sites. 

Accountability- Progress Page- What is it and how do I do it?

A mentorship between student and mentor flourishes with accountability.

As an individual, I'm all about accountability.  What is accountability? Well... accountability is simply being responsible and sharing how you have been responsible or in some cases irresponsible. You share that willingly with another.  

In other words, in the case of this mentorship, I'm agreeing to take my time to put together these posts, take out time from my work day to have classes etc. In doing this— I'm being accountable to you. I'm showing you that I am responsible for what I have committed to.  

Because this is a self guided study, with me as a mentor and you as a student. I have no idea what a student does or doesn't do unless they are accountable.  That is why I have asked my student, in this case Austin, though there may be others, to document what he does an send it to me- weekly.   He will do this and, with his permission I will post it here.  

The cool thing about accountability is that it helps to motivate you and keep you on the right track. You end up wanting to show what you can do, and how far you can go, and therefore you end up doing more than you would.

We will title our accountability as Progress Page.  Please send these to me weekly in an email and I'll transfer them to the blog. 

A sample Progress Page might look like this. 

PROGRESS PAGE

DATES- June 7-13 2015

June 7th Prior to meeting with Bridgette she asked me to draw my own portrait.  I did this. 

June 8th- (Austin- I will can help you document our private sessions) 

Private session at Bridgette's studio.  Went through the website, learned how to follow the links and what a "self guided" study might look like.  Watched Bridgette do a sketch of herself as she shared what her brain was telling her, even when her brain would say negative things. 

Learned

* not to name parts

* draw only what I see

* how to compare one thing to another. 

* learned "directional" shading

June 9th  on this day I followed the links on the work of Giocomeeti. The answers to some of the art questions are below.  ( you might also do what I did in the later part of the other video)  In the video of __( insert link here)____ I like the image at  The reason why is_______

On June 9th I sketched my hand - I liked the way it came out but didn't like my shading

On June 12th Been away from art for a few days, good to get back I put some entries into my common place book. 

June 13th My sister was watching tv and I decided to try and do a profile or side view sketch of her using what I learned in "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain." I hope I can sketch every family member before the summer is out. 

Artwork from this week that I want to share on the blog (Your mom can take pictures with her cell phone or we can do this when we meet.)

Private thoughts from this week (Here you may want to add things that you don't want public) Thoughts or questions you put in the e mail will not be made public.  

Your Common Place Book

I ask that you keep a common place book. This is a hard bound book similar to the book here. Though you have seen mine and once you go through your first common place book you might like to get something more decorative. I would advise having a book without lines.

Common placing is a very old term. A common place book is a combination of a scrap book, journal, and sketch book.


What it contains is:

• Things that inspire you, a saying a picture, a thought, an image. YOu can date your entries or just enter them as you feel lead to. 
• Quote you hear
• Ideas you have
• jot down the books you read and how you felt about them when you read them.  YOu may think you will remember, but you may not. Also note: When you are reading a book a sentence or a conversation may inspire you. Put this in your common place book. 

Do a google search for common place books and look at the images of other people's common place books.