Figure Drawing

I went to a figure-drawing open session. The model held poses for 15-20 minutes at a time. This was my first time drawing this way.

I quickly learned that time management is crucial because those 15-20 minutes fly. I found what works best for me is to quickly sketch out the shapes of the body into 3D geometric shapes, so the head (drawing it with a somewhat flat side for the face to show direction of the head), the torso, the arms (shoulder sphere + upper arm cylinder + forearm cylinder + hands), the hips, followed by the legs as cylinders. Then as the next step, I began morphing the geometric shapes into the body parts that they represent. More often than not, I had to redraw or reposition some of the body parts because they were too far or close or too big or small. All this time, I'm using pretty light strokes until I'm confident with the shape, at which point I use a medium stroke. Then before I go into shading, I focus on the face. Thinking back, the face is probably where I spent 10 of those precious minutes. This is because to me, the face is where the most amount of information can be conveyed from the drawing. Sure, the pose or the lighting also conveys information, but I'm not at that level yet nor have the time, so that's why I love putting a lot of attention to the face. If I can get the face detailed enough, then the rest of the body can be fine with less shading and detail. Once I'm done with the face, I scrambled to add in the shading across the body.

The above is my best and most complete drawing. I have 4 or 5 others that are not as good or not as complete. I really enjoyed drawing this way. I feel like it practices a different drawing muscle, definitely the speed and quick-thinking aspect, where I have to quickly break things down to shapes.

#art