The second pose
Posted: February 25, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized 9 CommentsYou can probably imagine what the most difficult part of this pose was for me. I was looking at Nancy’s face from below and on the side, and it was so hard to draw. As I mentioned in my post from Monday, Nancy has a tiny face with delicate features. They are even harder to draw when she’s in a prone position, so for this I tried to focus on two things: 1. that beautiful line of her hip against the background and 2. grouping the shadows on her body into big shapes. I’ve been reading Don Andrews book Interpreting the Figure in Watercolor. He uses a technique that he calls linkage, where he unites all the shadow shapes into one. It seems easy in theory but in practice it’s not, because the transitions from light to dark are very subtle on the curves of the body, unless there’s a cast shadow. I imagine the light he uses on his figures is much sharper than what we are dealing with in our life drawing room.
the softness of her belly and breasts is quite nice. What paint colors do you use to create the lighter of her skin colors? I am pretty good at colors but just starting to do people and my pigment is always a bit pink or a bit orange for Caucasians.
For a while I tried using the classic Charles Reid combo of Cadmium Red Light and Cadmium Yellow Pale but all the fleshtones looked like Barbie dolls. Now I am using Raw Sienna with a bit of Alizarin Crimson. And either Cerulean Blue or touches of green, possibly Viridian, for the cooler spots.
Thank you Shari! I also tried Reid’s and it didn’t work for me . . .
She is a landscape. Beautiful.
I love that Lee. Thanks.
Nice… to solve the problem of painting Nancy’s face, you could have used yesterday’s hand approach… simply cut off her head… it worked yesterday. : )
I meant compositionally (which is not really a word)… not literally.
That would have looked really good. I’m going to remember that for next time I have problems with a face. Cut off at the neck… Just like I was taught in art school!
They taught you to cut off at the neck in art school??? [surprised] Why?