I took a little time to relax over the end of year holidays. I enjoyed the extra time off from the day job last couple of weeks. I didn’t have any big plans for the time aside from sleeping in and working on some art. Even with the relaxation time I managed to keep up with the current sketchbook project, Facial Expressions so I thought I’d give you a bit of an update on it.
Wow did those 50 days go by fast. I have just a couple of days’ worth of pages left in the sketchbook, and I will probably have it completed by the time I get this posted. Which means I am nearing the end of this project. It has been interesting for me. I started out rusty, as I mentioned previously and then got a bit better, and then I slipped a little again. For the most part I have found my footing again and most of my exercises look right, though there will be the occasional expression that I just don’t quite get.
So, what happened? Well, to fix some of the initial placement and proportion type of issues I had I reverted to the basics that I know. Which is to use the eye as your measuring guide. At first this was fine and then I started being much more rigid and specific with the measurements and I started to lose some of the character in the expression. As a response to this one night, I just drew some of the basic shapes I was seeing and then started to expand from there.
I went from being very precise and measured in my approach to relaxing and using very loose strokes to start out and get the basic idea of placement and shape and then I would fill things in from there. And amazingly, it works. That’s a big step for me. To go from controlled to relaxed. I still have days where I can start out like that, controlled, especially if it is a particularly intimidating expression. Or even when doing different subjects. If it’s something I’ve never tackled before, or even a few things that I have tackled before. I can tense up and get too precise and cramped in laying in the basic shapes and then it takes longer and much more erasing.
And now, sooner than I expected, I am at the end of this project. I do have the next sketchbook project already planned. However, this project has made me think of a few more things I want to work on. For example, a good pose to go with each facial expression. Because you know, some expressions are not just in the face, they are in the whole body. And I want to learn to capture that. With that in mind I think my next project, though not that directly, will help get me there.
I know, what’s the next project? I have a great book “The Human Figure in Motion” that I purchased several years ago. The nature of the plates in it is to show how the human figure looks from different angles while doing different activities. I have not done much figure study work so I think this will be a really good exercise for me and give me a chance to look at how the body appears in these different positions.
As the plates/pictures in the book are taken using a high-speed camera around 1955, and because they are from a distance great enough to capture the entire body, there is some sacrifice in the detail. Detail is one of the things I can get lost in when I’m doing a drawing, not that it’s a bad thing, but sometimes, I get so caught up in the detail that I don’t get the overall form right. Another reason I think this will be a good exercise. There will be more of a focus on form rather than the exact detail.
And just as I was a little apprehensive about each of the previous projects, I am a little apprehensive about this one. I expect to take a few days to get my bearings and proportions right. And I think I am prepared for things to look really ugly at first. They won’t be as exciting sketches as what I have been working on, even with the facial expressions. And that’s ok. These are the stretches and warmups that we do to become better artists.
I expect, that like I have done with the last couple of projects, that I will be doing additional art pieces and sketches along the way. I did one the weekend before the New Year’s holiday that I really wanted to do. It’s a marker piece. And I have another one that I have the outline sketched out and I’m just waiting on the markers of the right colors to arrive so I can finish it. That one may turn out to be really interesting; I’m thinking of including some background and foreground.
So that’s where the art projects stand right now. Enjoy this sample of the Facial Expressions project and as with the first project, I’ll create a gallery post so you can view them all.
Full disclosure regarding the link to the book. I have no affiliation with Amazon or anyone else so if you are interested and happen to find it some place else, go for it.