People and Place part 3: Working with external visual impetus - people 3.2

The aim of this section is to introduce you to observing figures.

I chose my dad to observe for this exercise. I first did the most detailed sketch and worked around that with less detailed sketches and less lines and such, I had to do some sketches days apart from each other because unless it's the weekend my dad is usually watching the telly or accidentally snoozing on the couch after a busy day at work. I liked this exercise because I can see the personality in them, I am capturing everyday moments, the pictures are him being in the comfort of his own home just living. The top left drawing for some reason to me looks stretched and the proportions and looks a bit off which is annoying considering how I still struggle with wanting things perfect. When I do drawing like this it looks good to me for the first few days and then I end up focusing on things like the width between his nose and ear and how the head looks too long. I will say though this exercise is good for my traditional development, I always used to draw people and spend time pencil sketching but I've gotten a bit rusty as my focus has been quite digital over the last few years; it also means I'm a bit more intimated or discouraged when I get things wrongs. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this exercise and while probably continue to sketch like this because although challenging at times its good for patience and its fun.

I used only a mechanical pencil for this picture, so the tones and shadows don’t really vary. I really struggles getting my dad’s eye right, it was the hardest part of the while image, I would make it to small, too big, and then too close to the nose or too far away. I also think it was cause his head wasn’t completely still so there a little clash of angles with these slightest movements. There is a likeness to the drawing though; it did turn out better than expected considering I haven’t drew people in a while. We have these cushions on our couch that are these colourful puffy triangles that I had to include I think its a nice background compared to the seriousness of his face.

I think I captured a perfect amount of everyday activities and they all very in detail and style. The left page is a lot more detailed, and the right is more in motion. The image in the middle of the right page I laugh at because I can tell it’s my dad but it’s like a caricature withe the features being odd. I feel like I’ve shown my dad character on these pages, maybe it’s me being biased but I can see hints of humour (sewed sock and wearing a massive plastic sheet to cut his own hair). I showed my dad these pictures and he laughed, he also jokingly acted offended with me getting his double chin in when he was watching telly.

 

 Crowds and Activities (Liverpool Docks)

I enjoyed this exercise; it was a challenging but I'm happy about how they turned out. I took both my bigger sketchbook and my little just to vary between bigger drawings that took a bit longer and little ones. I wanted a new part of town to draw in rather than the route I’ve used a lot in this unit as it was getting a bit old; so, I spent the afternoon by the docks. Physically being there and drawing the people I did feel a bit self-conscious as I had to keep looking at what they're wearing, their face and all the rest of it, and I was a bit nervous about anyone coming up to me or making anyone uncomfortable but fortunately nothing like that happened and it was a fun experience. I tried to establish details first so I could have a bit of accuracy but that didn’t work very well so then I tried out continuous line and fast sketching where you could tell it was a person but it’s just the essence with minimal features, focusing on the bodies and shapes rather then facial features.

There were plenty of people about to draw and it was a nice day, so it was clear and bright.

This first page I was sat down by a food truck and the first sketch was the view in front of me and the second of the food truck on the left. There were so many people walking along this strip, and it was so hard to capture more than two people at a time I had to draw people very far away from me so that when they got closer, I would have most of their shapes down. I just used scribbles when someone was wearing a dark colour and made sure I at least captures the shape of the head and shoulders and the size of them. The singular sketch of the man by the truck was dressed like a musician and he had face to draw but I didn’t go into too much detail because I just want to include the main parts of his outfit and guitar he was carrying.

These next 2 I did landscape to capture a bit more around me, I used even less detail on these almost making them like stickmen or just drawing the head and torso especially for those in the distance. I involved the statue which you can see is the only solid figure in the picture. Again, this was hard to capture steady bodies, so I had to go from memory and my own anatomy knowledge to piece together the likeliness of a person movements. I struggled with the legs and feet the most because it’s so quick compared to the top part of the body. I like that I used a bit of perspective and distance in these sketches by making figures smaller to show there further away, it also means you can get away with not having detail just a circle and a blob underneath.

These next sketches I did in my little sketchbook, and I like them better, I just feel using pen for some reason was a lot easier and I felt more fluid drawing

Most of these drawings were drawn as one continuous line and it worked in drawing as many people as possible. There is more of a focus on the outside lines of the people in these ones like their silhouettes. I like the look of these compared to the pencil they’re a lot neater and clearer. The middle page of these 3 I spent the most time on and it was in a place you’d expect would be the best place to draw a group of people and that was at a traffic lights. I think that group of people in particular had the most variety in styles and features and patterns and hair styles. The waiting was so long because no one pressed the button and there was a match on, so the roads were so busy. No facial features were focused on in any of these either, yet they still look like people. I only attempted 1 or two standing up, but it was just too awkward to draw. It was still fun non the less. Through exercise I tried to remove the idea that everything has to be proportionate and treated everyone as shapes rather than actual bodies and I think it helped with the fluidity.