How hard is it to get somebody to sit still for you? Very. For free? Forget it. The going rate for models at art schools is $45-$50/hr. You can’t afford that, just for your own practice. So that’s out. But you need to and want to draw faces, hands, the figure.
Look around you. You’re actually inundated with images. The photography in magazines is excellent. Some of it, of course, is touched up to a bland, lifeless perfection. But much advertising is excellent. Part of your visual self-education involves spotting the good stuff. A good image to work from has distinctive shadows, motion and asymmetry.
I bring magazine clippings to class for us to work from. When it was demo time a couple of weeks ago, a student pulled out this clipping. My demo was about the versatility of the Aquarellable Pencil, using two tones, sepia and black and then going in with a wet brush. Notice how the unpredictability of the wash adds character and depth to the face, which otherwise might have gone into the bland, lifeless direction.
(Btw, this was the demo that inspired Karen to make the three face studies I presented in the previous post.)
Moral: there’s no excuse to go for a day without drawing.
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
artamaze by Katherine Hilden 