Drawing 2 - Assignment 1

The brief says;

"Think about all you’ve learned about scale, cropping, selection, flexibility and judgement and make a decision about which area you’d like to develop for your assignment piece."

Which pieces have worked best? I like these; 

I enjoyed doing all of the projects but one working with the human form was my favourite. My sketch books are full of drawings of people and animals with the occasional plant. Do I push myself by sticking to still life and inanimate objects which I don't draw as often. They are easier to draw as they don't move but I think it's a lot harder to create an interesting composition.

For the theme of my assignment I want to further develop the cropped figure. My dog is a lurcher so you can see the structure of his muscles. I have become interested in the way the muscles lie under the skin. In life drawing with humans it is quite normal to draw cropped areas but although I have tried to find artists who do this with animals I have been unable to find any examples. To start I made a number of sketchbook studies.

 Initially with a mixed blue and red Koh-i-noor Magic pencil which gives some interesting effects

 also with a fountain pen filled with brown ink

 a stick of graphite

and with a woodless graphite pencil which can generate broad strokes by using the side of the sharpened point.

Although I drew his head, my focus was on the body. I often draw Henry but I usually start at his head and work down his body, it was interesting to see that these drawings which start with his body are more lively and interesting. This may in part be because I was relaxed as I wasn't trying to create a finished drawing so it didn't matter if he moved, I just moved on to a different muscle group. He does manage some interesting positions but mostly they are the same so for drawing from life I was a bit limited to the poses you see.

Using graphite and the magic pencil I developed the sketches into bigger drawings, each one is done on A3 paper.

This drawing in the style of Egon Schiele, different subject matter but relying on line to create an image without a background and working from an uncommon angle.

This drawing was going to be bigger and more detailed but he moved. However  I think I like the simplicity of the lines so I have left it "unfinished" to try and convey the temporary nature of the pose.

The first two drawings best fulfil the brief that I set myself at the beginning of this assignment,

 

but they're only graphite drawings and I feel I should be giving more. I think the drawing on the left is the strongest composition so I redrew it in graphite, white and magenta coloured pencils and white oil pastel on grey paper.

 which I cropped

I'm not quite sure whether the crop works or whether the original, which pushes the curled up dog into the side of the page, has more tension but there's a dull bit of blank grey paper which I don't feel would benefit from just colouring in with a graphic stick and I don't want to fill with anything which will distract from the main drawing.

Tutor Feedback

My tutor didn't feel that the final drawing was sufficiently resolved to be considered finished. It has taken me a few weeks to reach the point where I feel ready to tackle it again and when I did I decided to start again but use the same materials although the paper I used has less tooth than the original.

It was difficult to photograph as the light reflects off the graphite and appears shiny or bizarrely brown. This was the best photo and I still think it looks better in real life.  It is more resolved which does look much better though it contradicts my original aim to keep an unfinished look to represent the transient nature of the pose, if I am to do an unfinished picture the underlying structure of it needs to be much better to carry the lack of detail.