Drapery Study

#1

I hadn’t seen anything specifying mediums for this thread, I am taking a course covering some traditional art foundations to build those skills from the ground up. Currently we are working on a drapery study to show a number of skills that have been covered from shading various shapes, showing contrast, using a full range of values to shade and proper proportions and depth.

I didn’t want to post too early in the process since initially it was just rough lines to find proportions for fitting the form onto my paper. (hopefully it’s alright that I am using a traditional medium of willow and compressed charcoal instead of digital)

#2

This is the current place that I am at, my instructor had told me that I need to increase contrast in the middle folds, refine subtle details and clean up my background a bit.

#3

hi andrew it looks good ,the second image looks much better than the first ,the section in the middle bottom looks a bit odd though and the shadow seems to dark.chrs

#4

Thanks for the input, I will look into that on my final revision tomorrow. This exercise has really made me appreciate traditional artistry because at first I really struggled to just reach 5-7 different shading values which really limited my expression I could accomplish.

#5

Here is the final pass at this piece.
-Increased contrast in areas, specifically cores on folds.
-Refined inner detail near the center lower portions
-Added tack details
-Added middle cast shadow onto background
-Reduced fibers hanging off the bottom as far as brightness and width
-Refined various edges to be more natural and accurate to the subject

#6

The readability of that crease just above the big black spot (on the left) at the middle/bottom is a bit vague. We can sort of guess that it is a convex crease, but that dark shape inside the lighter value of the crease–a sort of jagged triangle dark shape–that sticks out a bit and doesn’t look integrated. Is it a concave shape? Why is it so hard-edged?

#7

If I am looking at the right spot, that portion of my drapery was moved but I had already filled in the shading for the background limiting my ability to change the outline and correct it. I kept the original form and the result is that it doesn’t feel as consistent with the rest of the piece. We have moved on from this project to a female torso bust study though I can really appreciate the benefits of committing hours to observing and refining a piece made from viewing a real object instead of just drawing/photo references.

#8

If it’s allowed, it might be a good idea to snap a few well-exposed photos of the subject you’re painting, just so you can refer to it and check how things have been shifted. It’s also a good source for building an image library of references.

#9

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