Ecorche Drawings:Master Copies

Ecorche after Prud'hon, 8.5 x 11 inches

graphite pencil on mylar

One of the reasons I decided to take Andrew Ameral's anatomy/ecorche class is I hoped it would help me learn to draw from my imagination. The drawings here are my pencil copies from Prud'hon academies, but I drew the bones on trace paper overlay completely without reference.

Ecorche after Prud'hon, 8.5 x 11 inches

graphite pencil on mylar

Not that these bones are perfectly correct, but I could never do anything like that before.

I am almost done with my clay skeleton and this week as a class we will be moving on to the muscles. I'll be posting photos of my skeleton soon.

"The Cabinet" Prep Drawing and Open Grisaille Underpainting

"The Cabinet"
12 x 16 inches, oil on panel, work in progress

See previous post about this painting here

It feels so good to be working on one of my still lifes again! This is the "Open Grisaille" underpainting - essentially just Raw Umber and turp, an initial pass at roughing in the basic values. I tell my students that at this stage you just have to accept some ugliness, it's impossible to make this thin, brushy layer look pristine.

Some artists do this stage as a "wipe-out", where they tone the whole panel and then wipe away the highlights. I don't do this because I find it wipes away my drawing too much, and lacks a certain level of precision. This layer is painted very thin, and I tell my students to think of "kissing" the contours with the tip of the brush, to avoid a hard, unthinking swipe along those carefully-drawn contours.

12 x 16 inches, graphite on panel, preparatory drawing

I started the drawing on Mylar drawing vellum (I like a brand called "Dura-Lar" - be careful not to buy the clear acetate in the similar packaging though). Then I transferred the blocked-in drawing to the panel before refining it. I always do the last few hours of refining the drawing directly on the panel, to avoid that dead "traced" look. That way every contour has been drawn from life right on the panel. I use the Mylar stage of the drawing for blocking in proportions and finalizing the composition.

The contour drawing is hard to photograph because the final lines are so thin and light, so I had to tweak the photo quite a bit in Photoshop, which is why it looks somewhat "dirty".

Once the drawing is finished I seal the panel with a coat of Dammar with some turp mixed in. This protects the drawing from being wiped away, and also makes the panel less "thirsty". Now it's a perfect surface to paint on.

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Teaching schedule:
I'm always adding new classes, open model sessions, workshops and demos to my Teaching Page!

"From the Cabinet"

Here's a sneak peek at my new still-life setup - I am so excited to be starting a new painting again! Sometimes I agonize over setting up a composition but this one fell together easily, probably because I have fun new props to play with, courtesy of Susan Foster who generously let me take my pick from her fabulous collection of still life items. And I finally got to incorporate my treasured quail feather, which I have been meaning to paint for a while now. I am almost already regretting it already - those stripes are going to be a challenge!!

This is a new look for me - rich deep reds and soft greens, an antique aqua-colored ink bottle and some twisty dried twigs and fiddleheads... I think of it as a sampling from a 19th century "Cabinet of Curiosities".

The familiar item is my lovely little golden seashell. While blocking in the composition and then all the natural forms I am reminded that EVERYTHING is based on the most ancient of symbols, the mysterious spiral!

Ecorche: Spine and 2 more Skulls

Skull Proportion Studies

8 1/2 x 11 inches, graphite on mylar

I drew these skulls from life but first I constructed them based on rules of proportion. Now I have a bunch of questions for my anatomy teacher Andy (www.andrewameralart.com), because they still don't look quite right. I think in the upper left study I somehow inadvertently moved the top of the zygomatic arch up too high. And the lower one has some unidentifiable problems!

It's strange working with skulls... playing with proportions, both the drawings and the clay model of the skull just look warped and non-human, but as I adjust them they suddenly they start to approach a look I call "skullish", meaning suddenly they start to look like skulls.

I think we all have a template for what a skull looks like. I have noticed that at a certain point, the skull "locks in" (or at least gets closer) to the idea of a skull.

Spine Studies

8 1/2 x 11 inches, graphite on mylar

These spine studies are after Richer. His anatomy diagrams at first looked cold and a bit boring to me, but the more I copy them, the more I am impressed by the enormous amount of very precise information he packs in: gracefully at that, and with highly economical linework.

I spent a couple hours just blocking in these spines, but I got overwhelmed to think of drawing every little spinous process. I think I'll just draw ONE vertebrae from several angles!

Ecorche Drawings: Pelvis, Shoulder Girdle, Skull/Rib/Pel combo

Two views of the Pelvis

graphite on mylar, 8 1/2 x 11 inches

More studies for my Ecorche Anatomy class with Andrew Ameral. Two solid studio days of just drawing bones, what fun!

Side view of the Pelvis

graphite on mylar, 8 1/2 x 11 inches

I'm also continuing to refine my clay figure, but it's coming along very slowly! I have massed in my ribcage, pelvis and spine, but I won't bother to post photos till they are more developed. Will hopefully post some photos of a prettier skull this weekend.

Shoulder girdle studies

graphite on mylar, 8 1/2 x 11 inches

Studies of Skull, Ribcage, Pelvis relationships

graphite on mylar, 8 1/2 x 11 inches

Most these drawings are copies from anatomy books (sometimes composites from several), only the pelvis drawings are from life.

Study of Ward

Study of Ward

16 x 20 inches, graphite pencil on paper

This is the demonstration drawing I did during my most recent "6 Sundays" figure drawing class with 6 private students at my studio. The "moon" in the upper right corner is the remnants of my lecture on how light and shadow behave on a sphere.

We all had a wonderful time studying the figure in a long, multi-week pose under cool north light.

I am offering my next Classical Long Pose Figure Drawing class at my studio in San Francisco beginning May 16th, 2010. Please visit my Classes and Workshops page for more information.

I am also planning to set up a long pose model share, full time for 2 weeks, probably in July. If you would be interested please email me to let me know: sadiej@gmail.com. This will be an uninstructed workshop, limited to a small group, with the option to draw or paint. More information coming soon!

Also, I leave tomorrow to fly to Florida for my opening at M Gallery in Sarasota, where I will be showing 6 paintings.

Ecorche - Skull and ribcage drawings

Here are this week's anatomy drawings to prepare for my ecorche class on Saturday.

All of these are on 8.5 x 11 inch, graphite pencil on mylar. Oh, since I was asked in an email, this is the mylar I use. Be careful and read the label before you buy it at the store, though - it's really easy to buy the wrong stuff, the clear acetate pad looks almost exactly the same. (And it does not come in 8.5x11, Andy requested we do our assignments in this format so I cut down sheets from a larger pad).

Figuring out how to do the correct spacing on the ribs was the challenge. I did not realize how hard it was going to be. I can;t imagine sculpting this.... I guess I'm about to find out!

I really like the stage of drawing where I get to play around with tiny subforms and see all the crazy shapes nature can perform. But with the ribcage, it was all just blocking-in and measuring, no time to explore the fun details of the morphology.

I have a feeling there will be more ribcage drawings assigned next week though, so maybe I'll get my chance.

Sooo tired, but having a lot of fun!

Écorché - Skull drawings

Last week was the first day of my ecorche class with Andrew Ameral.

Ecorche is studying anatomy by sculpting a "flayed" figure - as if it has no skin, so you can see the bones and muscles. We sculpt the bones first and then build all the muscles over the skeleton.

Every week we will have drawing homework. This week we were assigned to draw a skull from 5 different views. It took me exactly 10 hours to draw these 5 skulls - very, very difficult to get the proportions correct.

These two sheets of drawings are each are 8x10 inches, drawn with graphite on mylar paper. Mylar is a translucent vellum that is my new favorite paper for pencil drawing. It grabs the graphite with a silky/dusty feeling and is capable of getting a huge range of value from graphite. These drawings were all done with 2H (very hard) pencils.

I also need to label these with all the names of the bones of the skull - did you know the skull is made up of 22 different bones?

I bought my skulls at The Bone Room. The store is near me in Berkeley, CA, but you can also buy from them online. The cast skulls with the brand name "Bone Clone" are amazingly high quality for a very reasonable price!! I bought the two skulls (one real, one cast), a whole pelvis, and also a fibula (which nicely illustrates the tapered, spiraling nature of organic form!). I contemplated lots of other things to buy, but had to hold off for now. Next I am going to save up for a whole skeleton....

Andrew's class runs through June, and I'll be blogging it as much as possible, so stay tuned!

First drawing class in the new studio

I just held my first class in my new studio, a weekend figure drawing workshop. The class was a wonderful group, and we all had so much fun!

There is still space for ONE more student in my 5-week figure drawing class beginning this Sunday, an opportunity to study a long pose in my new north-light studio.

Also, I just posted registration information for my upcoming classes: "Still Life Painting" and "Drawing for Absolute Beginners".

More information at:
www.sadievaleri.com/teaching.html

Conch Shell

I grew up visiting Cape Cod in Massachusetts, wandering the beaches with my back tanned dark from all my hours hunting seashells. So I was delighted when I saw this familiar shape sitting on the windowsill at the home of my friend Lisa. She told me a friend of hers found it intact on a Cape Cod beach, which I happen to know is a real find because they are usually broken. Lisa agreed to let me borrow it, and now that the new studio is set up I am finally able to begin studying the shell.

Drawing a seashell is like solving a puzzle - every piece fits logically with every other piece, there can be only one way it all fits together, and it is completely wrong until it is completely right. The same way some people enjoy doing crossword puzzles, I'm going to enjoy my next few hours at the easel finding how all those pieces fit together.

Winged Victory Drawing Demo

See the larger version here

I made this 8 minute movie of my 10-hour drawing of my cast statue "Victoire de Samothrace" to demonstrate the optical block-in method.

1. The line drawing is all straight lines.
2. The shadow side is first filled in as all one even tone.

These two methods are difficult to adhere too, but if you can do it they address the main difficulties in drawing: capturing accurate proportion, and understanding light and shadow.

Materials:

• Strathmore 400 drawing paper (not ideal for charcoal)
• vine charcoal, hard medium, and some soft (sharpened very sharp with sandpaper)
• kneaded eraser
• white "magic rub" eraser
• paper blending stump
• rough, cheap paper towel for blending

Winged Victory

charcoal on paper

18 x 24 inches

Wrapped Silver Goblet: Video 1

My new painting Wrapped Silver Goblet is almost done (see the first post about this painting here). I've been filming the process of creating this painting, so here is my first episode: A demonstration of how I developed the preparatory contour drawing in pencil:

(Click here to see a higher quality version)

In the video I mention transferring a drawing to a panel using trace paper. A lot of people ask how this is done so here is a how-to I wrote up for a student recently:

1. Draw a straight-line block-in of your composition with pencil on white drawing paper. Make your drawing the same size and shape as your painting panel.
2. When your block-in drawing is done, lay it down on a table (not an easel) and overlay a sheet of tracing paper. Tape down all 4 corners with removable artist's tape.
3. Trace your drawing onto the tracing paper with a hard pencil (H or HB). Be sure to trace the corners of the drawing too, so you can line it up correctly on your panel.
4. Remove the tape, flip over your trace paper drawing and scribble gently with a soft pencil (2B/3B) over all the lines you can see through the trace (OR you can use transfer paper, which you can buy in rolls at the art supply store).
5. Arrange the trace paper drawing-side up (scribble side down) over your panel. Line up corners with the drawing. Tape all the corners.
6. Using a hard pencil (2H) go over all lines of the drawing to press the contour lines onto the panel. Occasionally lift one corner to make sure the lines are transferring.
7. When you have traced all your lines, discard the trace paper. Your drawing should be transferred to the panel. Move the panel back to the easel
8. Refine your drawing on the panel with a 2B pencil, working from life. (Otherwise all your lines will have the dead, "traced" quality")
9. Varnish the panel to seal the surface. Optional technique is to trace over all your pencil lines with a sepia-ink fountain pen or brown ultra-fine sharpie. Either way, seal the surface of the panel with varnish. Allow to dry. (I use damar varnish thinned with Turpenoid and with a small amount of Titanium white mixed in. Shake it in a jar to mix.)

Blocking In (new wax paper series)

Wrapped Silver Goblet (in progress)

11 x 14 inches

graphite pencil on trace paper

I have a couple teaching opportunities coming up which I am very excited about: I'll be teaching drawing this fall semester to first-year MFA grad students at San Francisco's Academy of Art University, and there are plans in the works to possibly do a couple workshops next year (I'll keep you posted).

All of these opportunities are really exciting, and as I have been thinking about them I find I am "teaching" myself as I work all the time. Observing myself as I work helps me avoid problems deeper in the drawing. It's a sort of narration: At first it was non-verbal narration, simply paying attention to what I see and and comparing that to my drawing. But since I have begun teaching, that internal narration is becoming more and more verbal, as I imagine how I would teach as I draw.

I've been working the last couple days to begin a few new paintings of still life, and my first step is using straight-line block-in to establish the composition and forms.

Wrapped Bottle (in progress)

graphite pencil on trace paper

6 x 8 inches

Block-in for me is always the most stressful stage of a painting or drawing. Positioning the correct placement and shape on that blank space feels like plotting a course across the Atlantic.

I put the first few lines down and for a short while I feel like everything is going great, and then as I move into the next level of detail the errors begin to show up. And since the initial block-in is defining the whole shape with only a few lines, the errors are usually quite drastic and devastating to the design. Panic!

Beach Stone and Wax Paper (in progress)

graphite pencil on trace paper

5 x 5 inches

I tell my students that drawing well is essentially learning to control a sense of constant panic (I say that because I think a lot of us are quietly panicking in drawing class, and it helps the students know everyone else is feeling the same way, including me.)

But I try to use that panic to my advantage. The "Oh, no, it's all wrong!" feeling can plummet any draughtsman into despair and temptation to abandon the drawing (or crumple, scribble, or burn it).... But it's also a useful feeling. If we can react to the feeling with calm and acceptance, and simply take it as a reminder to stop and look, it becomes a useful tool.

My confidence in the block-in process has grown with my experience and now I know if something is wrong, if I keep my head calm and just look, I'll probably figure out the problem.

Not that I always do a perfect block-in by any means. And I certainly do not do my best block-ins when I am demonstrating in front of a group. But like any mental/emotional discipline, the more you practice, the easier it is to tap into problem-solving mode and focus, even in stressful situations.

Hudson Fellowship Day 26

Tree Color Study

9 x 12 inches

oil on linen panel

What a day - up and out in the field by 7:30am, quick run home for a 30 minute break at midday, then back to the field till 4:30. At 7:30 we'll go out again for a final attempt at a sunset study. We're trying to cram in one last good long workday before we leave tomorrow. Best part is it's been warm and sunny all day, and the puffy cumulus clouds rolling by all afternoon are indicating a killer sunset to come.

The painting above is my continuation of the painting I started a couple days ago. Later I moved into the shadow of the same tree to do a close-up drawing of it's awesome tangle of branches coming off the trunk (below).

Last, I did this little sketch of Emily under her white umbrella as she painted in a field of purple wildflowers under billowing cumulus clouds.

Emily en Plein Air

oil on linen

6 x 8 inches

Next up, dinner and then a final attempt at a sunset sketch. I'm really not looking forward to the sunset session as I have officially run out of bug repellent...

I probably won't have time to post again for a few days, as I plan to jump in the car early tomorrow to start my 4-hour drive to Pennsylvania where I'm meeting up with my husband before we fly together back to San Francisco in a few days. Thanks to everyone for following along, it's been a really intense month and I've appreciated all of your well-wishes.

Hudson Fellowship Day 25

Tree Branch Study

pencil on paper

approx 6 x 9 inches

We made a valiant effort to get up and out early to work by 8am while the weather was clear, but the rain came down hard by 10am and we had to scramble to the car before we floated away - all I got done was a block-in drawing of the tree I painted yesterday, not even worth posting here.

It continued to pour hard the rest of the afternoon, so a few of us set up to work on the porch of the house we are staying in. The above is my drawing of a particularly dramatic tree branch visible in the yard. It's such a great specimen of organic form, I don't know why I ever needed to venture off the porch at all!

Here are Fellows Ken Salaz and Emilie Lee working with me on the porch to avoid the rain:

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and warm, our last full work day, so many of us are hoping to get in a final session of working from our primary subjects.

Hudson Fellowship Day 9

"Ship Boulder"

graphite pencil on toned paper

Hudson Fellowship Day 8

I'm trying to pick a composition and commit to one scene (or maybe 2) so I can focus my studies towards making a fully developed painting. Having a hard time choosing though, everywhere I look there's something to potentially paint.

This was my atempt today but I don't think I'm going to pursue it. It's too complicated to understand what's going on.

The fatigue is starting to get to me. Not getting enough sleep, plus hiking/scrambling around in the gorge, plus sitting and working for hours in the cold, are all starting to wear me out! Going to try for 9 hours of sleep tonight... my goal is try to sleep at least as many hours of the day as I paint!

Check out the Grand Central Academy Blog which is documenting more sketches from the Fellows, so you can get a closer look at what's on that long table.

Hudson Fellowship Day 7

Trees with view of Hudson Valley

ink and white guache on paper

cloud studies, pencil on paper

Hudson Fellowship Day 6

Where I worked from 9am to 6pm today

"Two trees with exposed roots"

approx 9 x 12 inches

ink and white guache on toned paper

"Waterfall and pool"

approx 7 x 12 inches

ink and white guache on toned paper

Day 4 boulder sketch, more details added

Hudson Fellowship Day 5

falls study

ink and guache on toned paper

approx 9 x 12

A closeup-of the upper region of the composition I sketched yesterday.