Life Drawing 1

Every other week we've been taken out to do life drawing. It's unfortunate, however, that our group has been missing the sessions inside where we would draw from a nude model, as I would really like to brush up my human drawing skills. Nevertheless, this is what I've produced so far.

 This piece was actually done at the beginning of the course. We went out and drew Norwich Cathedral. Although I was already familiar with the concepts of perspective, it still took a while to get the form exactly right, especially making sure that the proportion of the building is correct. I also wasn't aware of making sure to map out your drawing area so I ended up going off the page to the right and the top.

Another perspective drawing, and this time it is in the town, just above the market. Again, perspective was little to no problem for me, but this time I focused on making sure that everything was in proportion to each other. It was not an easy feat but I managed it better than I did before, I believe.

We were then taken the next fortnight to Norwich Castle, where they have a section with a lot of taxidermy animals. We were asked to combine multiple creatures into one that, whilst not real, would make sense anatomically. This was a lot more difficult than initially thought, but I started out by looking at goat heads, trying to get a feel for how they are ideally proportioned and how the horns fit on the head.

I then took a look at the lions, trying to capture the sense of movement that the taxidermy created by using loose, flowing lines. I feel like I captured the movement pretty well, and by this point I began to formulate an idea on what I wanted to combine together.

This was the result. I combined an antelope head, a lion's body, and a pelican's wings. I'd initially started a different sketch but I was informed that the balance of the body was off so I restarted into this. I did not have much time to finish so it was left in a very sketchy state when I had to present. The tutor thought that the seamlessness of the form was good, especially on the wings. However, he also had to point out that I could have spent more time on it to get a more finished result. I agree, though it was a lot more difficult than I originally thought to get a shape pinned down which I thought would suit the creature.