Hephaestion Preparing for the Games and Prometheus

I drew from the live nude model for the first time last week. I'd never really done figure drawing before, and I've always found drawing bodies difficult (unsurprisingly), especially when drawing from memory. So, naturally, I'm vey happy that my drawing class is heavily emphasizing the body, because I want to be an animator of sorts and will probably have to draw lots of bodies in lots of different positions. (Wink.)

Anyway, my improvement seems, to me at least, quite dramatic, even over the course of just a few hours of drawing. I don't have photos of some of my best figure drawings from the Co-op since I had to turn them in for homework, but rest assured—when I get them back and document them I will certainly upload it all here for all zero of my followers to see!

First week

Our first model was a nice middle-aged lady. She had a nice fluffy belly and inwardly curving back. She was a phenomenal poser—I wish some of my early drawings weren't so awful because they just don't accurately capture how dynamic many of her poses were.

One of the first! I believe these were three minute poses. Looking back I can see how terrible they are, but when I was making them I thought I was the next Michelangelo—an anatomy genius.

I started using the side of my charcoal to get some different textures going on. I also believe these were five minute poses.

My teacher liked this one. I think it looks pretty bad, especially the cloth on the stool. But he was hovering over my shoulder, and authority makes me nervous...

This was the first 10 minute pose. We saw life drawings by Daumier over a short class break, and I think I was trying to emulate his style a little bit. Trying being the key word here.

I wish I had accurately rendered the back leg. It kind of ruins the drawing. It looks like she's standing on one of those rotating lamb legs in Greek meat restaurants, used for gyros. (Oddly specific.)

These multiple pose drawings confuse the hell out of me and look terrible.

Last drawing of the day. Our teacher noted that most of the class was focusing too much on the outline of the form and less on volume, so he had us shade from the outside inwards and try to create a form that way. I think she looks almost holy here, with a dark glowing halo surrounding her calm, contained form.

Second week

Our homework assignment (which I had mentioned above) was to attend the MCAD Drawing Co-op and create 25 figure drawings. I'd never been and was quite nervous about going, but several of my classmates were there, and it was an all-around good time. Our model was literally amazing and had crazy intense muscles and did very active poses. I learned a lot from drawing him for four hours.

I don't have the drawings from his posing, though.

The guy we had in class this week was nice, but kind of funny. He was a bit awkward and did some interesting poses, like making a gun shape with his hand or tilting his wrist to the side, like he was cradling a goblet in his palm. So that was weird. But he was funny and nice. I asked him after class if it was weird seeing so many naked drawings of himself, and he said that he was only upset by how everyone kept unforgivingly drawing his paunch, which was present despite the fact that he exercises. I think he was joking with me. But I also felt it cut deeply for him. 

Three minute poses. This is the gun hand one I was talking about.

This pose was drawn from memory, which was NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE.

The last drawing: an unfinished and pretty terrible planar analysis of the body. Planar analysis is the bane of my existence.

(PS The title of the blog post are titles for the respective models. I was informed that I should name these drawings after Greek figures and characters to add some legitimacy to my otherwise scrappy figure drawings.)