Portrait exercises

Last Thursday (yes, I am a week behind on updating the drawing module work) we spent the day doing portraits in pairs. I paired up with the lovely Mrs Charlie who you see above (no guarantee of resemblance!). Our first task had been to take it in turns to draw a detailed portrait of the other - on for ten minutes; then swapping; posing for ten minutes; etc. We each did 4 or so sessions, so the drawing above took about 40 minutes in total. Gary the tutor was very keen for us not to 'draw' per se, but just do a lot of measuring (pencil at arms length kind of stuff) and marking off where things were, and building up on that. Most of us did a bit of that to get proportions right, but then started drawing in details. I think though what he had really wanted was for us to just keep measuring and making marks, and hoping that that would eventually form itself into a picture of the person. I understand this now ... and I think I might have another go at this with Sunshine as my model.

Then we had to look only at our drawing, and generate 6 new smaller drawings which were, from top left; continuous line, blind contour, only tonal, left handed, using different media, and last but not least, from memory. I think the continous line one is my favourite.


Then the exercise was repeated, but looking at the real life model. We were being quite pressured for time by this point and you can see that we had both started drawing at the same time (Charlie's looking away from me) as we didn't have the time to take it in turns. It was fun though - and we were having a real laugh! I managed to draw her smiley face blind and make her teeth look like a mustache (!) whereas in one of her drawings she managed to make my nose look like a pig's! Very very funny .... but we didn't really care. It was all about loosening up and trying things that we don't normally do and looking at 'drawing' in different ways.


The last exercise was to start with a full portrait and then make each progressive one simpler, and simpler ... and see what you're left with...


I must say I struggled with this whole session as it was several things that are mental blocks for me - drawing people, drawing from an 'alive' subject, and on a couple of them, drawing faces from memory. EEEkkk!!! But I'm pushing my comfort zones, and that can only be a good thing ... And it was really nice to have Charlie as a partner - as we mostly struggled with the same things and could push each other on ...

We had a fab time at the drawing class today - I'll hopefully update all about that tomorrow when I've managed to get hold of some good pictures of what we've produced. It was also last day of term, before three weeks of Easter break! Yippee!!! I shall be celebrating my birthday on Monday not worrying about handing in assignments (although a lot of Easter break will be spent on the Narrative and Sequence module book project) or having to wake up early the next day ... aaaahhhhhh ..... lovely ....