Exercise: Essential Shapes

Drawing 1.  

The requirement for this exercise was to arrange a model in a chair at a slight angle in a chair and consider the axis that runs through the seated figure.

My first hurdle, my model has a bad back and could not twist the way I wanted him to, the second was not liking the charcoal and charcoal pencil I used, although I grew to like it a little better after a few attempts of using it. 

Charcoal has never been my first chose of media. All drawing were on A3 cartridge paper.

I was unsure of how this exercise was to be drawn. Was it of the shapes only or as a figure concentrating on the shapes of indevidual parts of the body, looking more like a sketch as the example in the course work.  

Drawing 1.
Tried this with basic shapes then attempted to connect them to make a figure. I didn't like this attempt and the shapes seem all wrong. The drawing shapes did not work for me. I can see the shapes as I'm looking but I cant seem to draw these basic forms and having them look or resemble anything like a person. Further attempts seem much better to me only considering the form of triangles, squares, circles, triangle, sheres and cones. 

Drawing 2.

Drawing 2. 

Still using the above principle but more rounded this drawing is much better giving some shape. The face and head is not right and needs work.

Drawing 3. 

Drawing 3.
The shading worked well here and leaving the face and hands blank allowed me to concentrate on  the torso and limbs. My favourite of all the sketches, although in reflection I need to concentrate on the whole as it looks like I missed the left side of the chair in which he was sitting.

Drawing 4.

Drawing 4.

The shape and form seems to be good but I'm not happy with the overall outcome of this drawing. The legs don't seem to bend in the right place and the shoulders are too high. All seemed to be working well at the time it's only on reflection it's not so good as the rest.

Drawing 5.

I really like this. It worked well with all the shapes and foreshortening.

The shading works for me with hatching rather than smudging the charcoal. 

No head gave me more scope to draw the figure in more detail, although this sketch

was the quickest of all. I like the speed in which it came together, the fast hatching

and the looking at the body as a whole. Instead of jeopardising the quality with speed I think it enhanced it.  

Drawing 6. 

Drawing 6.

Face in Shapes. The last drawing on this page is of a face made from these shapes in a large A2 size of white plain paper in charcoal. I like the outcome of this piece. All the shapes worked well together and the sketch as a whole looks as it should.