I feel that I’ve finally got where I wanted to be all the time! Let’s see whether I can make something out of this project.
Exercise: Drawing your face
The task
– Draw several five-minute sketches of your face from different angles to face and head
– Draw five more quick sketches focusing on the overall shape of the head without the neck
– Draw the shape of your neck repeatedly until it looks right
I made three self portraits in the A4 sketchbook. I think I took slightly longer, maybe 15 minutes per sketch. None of them really resembles me and they are all somewhat distorted.
I then proceeded to drawing the shape of my head. I wasn’t able to make sense of the exercise. I saw my head as an oval, so I’d draw an egg shape and that was it. In the second oval I sketched some of the hair outline plus marks for eyebrow and nose positions. But I could not make anything meaningful out of the task.
With the shape of my neck I had a similar experience. I drew my neck as two parallel lines plus some more lines to indicate the position of horizontal bones and the throat muscle. What would that be, a loose neck without the form of the head or torso? I found this task entirely meaningless.
Exercise: A self portrait
I began with searching a comfortable position and placing the mirror. The first portrait was with the head bent backwards onto a cushion. The light wasn’t very strong and this may have facilitated my focus on essential simple shapes. This portrait is a successor of the earlier one in A3 on grey paper when I began with figure drawing. The traits are a bit distorted but there’s much more resemblance than with the other portraits.
For the second self portrait I chose coloured pencil. I started with a very light yellowish brown and was surprised how well this worked to model something three-dimensional. I gradually added darker tones and increased intensity of colours. It really felt like sculpting a form. I’m very satisfied with this drawing. It’s like a breakthrough because I found a way how to draw the tonal shades that create three-dimensionality. There’s also considerable resemblance with my face.
Both self portraits are small, I chose an A5 format. The small format works well for slowly building up tone using coloured pencil. I remember the drawing with flowers in coloured pencil which was supposed to be done in A3, and how the sheer size of the paper was so discouraging.
Exercise: Portrait from memory
The task
– Make notes about: situation and mood of the person; position of the head and direction of gaze
– draw quick preparatory sketches of the head and individual features until you feel confident
– draw the portrait of someone else or a self portrait from memory
I decided to make a portrait of a colleague, Susanne. I don’t have a very good memory and drawing a face from memory is something I’d not normally attempt because I’d be quite sure that it wouldn’t resemble that person. I once was close friends with someone and hadn’t even been aware that he had a beard for a while and then had shaved it off. So I was quite certain not to produce anything remarkable for this exercise.
My main visual memory of my colleague was her hairstyle, medium length with a pony that was roundly cut to frame the face. I also remembered her expression as friendly but with a slight tense trait around the mouth. So in the sketches, I mainly tried to get the hairstyle and the mouth somewhat similar to her. The subsequent drawing was again on A5 size and 4B pencil. I included both features and it looks more realistic than I’d have thought, although I’m quite sure there’s not enough resemblance for other people to know who that person would be. The sketches are in the A4 sketchbook, the drawing is 4B pencil on A5 paper
