Sketchbook Thread of Woody

#1

Hi All

I have finished Rebeccas Figuratively Speaking course and she suggested I started my own thread here.

So here we go…

Woody

#2

and a few more…

#3

Im planning on posting a few new pieces each week to try and force myself to continue on with my studies and to try to improve. (first lot will be by wednesday of this week.)

So Please feel free to jump in here critque as all comments will be help full.

Woody

#4

Woody,

It’s great to see your thread up, and I must say that I was tremendously impressed with how much you improved through the course. You definitely put a great deal of time and effort into the Workshop, and it shows. Thanks for being a part of it ~ I’ve really enjoyed having you in the class, and it’s hard to believe that it’s over! :slight_smile:

I think that the piece which you could continue to work on to improve is the David torso, on which you have a great start, but which I think you could tweak a great deal to bring out the contrast and the contrappasto of the pose.

It would be great to see you continue to update your Workshop pieces here, as well as post new work of course! Looking forward to following your thread here.

Cheers, :slight_smile:

~Rebecca

#5

Thanks for the comments Rebecca and thankyou again for all you efforts in the past weeks on the class… :thumbsup:

#6

You’re totally welcome! I had a blast. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

~Rebecca

#7

Brilliant stuff woods. Most people who begin these types of courses already have a grounding in illustration and are just fine tuning.

I knew what kind of hill you had to climb from the beginning, and you’ve started making some real progress.

Really start pushing the life drawing as opposed to flat work… This is the most important step now.

Well done to RebeccaK for keeping you going thus far.

#8

Hi…Woody…:slight_smile: …Really like that portrait…great depth in the eye socket area…nice.
You might try starting with a black, or deep almost black purple background…will allow you to
lose some of the outline,as your forms will recede and advance, in and out of the darkness,
creating greater depth, atmosphere, and drama …It’s also a great way to express the effects of light and shadow on your figures…also has the effect of creating mood, emotion ect. in
the process.
Looking forward to seeing more of your work…:thumbsup:

TAKE CARE
Glenn

#9

thanks SpiritDreamer I will have a think about that… more stuff on the way this week…

#10

Right Ok here we go one 40 min sketch from ref…

#11

Hey, nice Woody! I hope you plan to take this further…the feet I think are looking blocky, and a little bit small at this point, but you’ve got nice proportions and sense of volume that can be built on nicely. Also watch the vase ( ) curves in the left leg. Nice work so far! :slight_smile:

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

#12

Thanks Rebecca I will watch that Here is the update…

#13

Woody,

Looks good, I think the main bit is to use white a lot less sparingly ~ really you only want to use white for the brightest highlights, and the rest is some form of gray.

Take for example this photo, from characterdesigns.com ~ the model has incredibly fair skin, yet you can see in the grayscaled version of the photo that for the most part, the values fall in the mid ~ dark range and that the really light areas are because of a bit of overlighting ~ in fact, there is very little PURE white in the grayscaled image, even the brightest bright is just a bit off of white.

[left]The main thing is to start from a darker value ~ go darker than you THINK ~ and then gradually work lighter.

Also, go easy on the outlining of the figure ~ really try to define form less with outlines, and more with value contrasts of major shapes.

Hope this helps. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

~Rebeccak
[/left]

#14

Thanks for that rebecca Your right I keep having this problem of starting too light I need to start darker but it just seems odd to me not sure why…

Anyway here is one I have done today where I did start slightly darker…

#15

Hey, I think this looks loads better when starting from a darker value! :thumbsup: Really nice start here! :slight_smile:

One thing I notice is that you tend to make forms a bit blocky. Really try to get graceful curves into almost every line that you draw ~ for example, in the corner of the eye, you really want to emphasize the gracefulness of that curve. Initially it’s fine to sort of block things in with rougher shapes, but ultimately, you don’t want to have the appearance of any straight lines in your work. Remember that every curve in a drawing or painting relates to every other curve. This is true even at the micro level of the eye, and at the macro level of the entire body.

Here is a quick overpaint ~ hope it helps: :slight_smile:

[left]Cheers, :slight_smile:

~Rk
[/left]

#16

I see what you mean mine is definitly a bit blocky…

Updated…

#17

Hey, Woody,

This is looking better! :slight_smile: Try softening the dark outline about the eyes, and adding a drop shadow beneath the lid. I’m happy to do a bit of a paintover if you want me to. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

#18

Didnt post last week had been working on a piece in the real world… :slight_smile:

Painted in acrilic long way to go… (Sorry the photo turned out a bit poor.)

#19

Woody,

Great to see you again! :slight_smile: This might be a good piece to rework digitally, if you felt so inclined. I’ve done this to several of my older pieces and have been pretty happy with the results. In fact soon I’ll be shooting some of my older student work and if it turns out decently will post it.

Hopefully you’ve gotten the chance to see the SPOTLIGHT Forum, and to see your work featured there in the Personal Anatomy Threads. :thumbsup:

Cheers, :slight_smile:

~Rebeccak

#20

Hi Rebecca

Thanks for pointing out the spotlight stuff good to see it all up and running now…

I may well rework this peice digitally or at least create a paintover to help me adjust the painting…:thumbsup:

Woody