I studied the human figure through using charcoal and ink drawings, painting, and sketching in class. We first started with the study of the hand in pencil.
We then did charcoal gesture drawings and progressed to practicing with Sharpie. I completed the figure in 30 seconds, one minute, two minutes and then more lengthy amounts of time. This was where I began to understand the proportions of the body more clearly as I had several attempts at drawing the live models.
I studied NBA players to draw the human form in geometric shapes.
Soon after, the class then shifted to painting the human form. I painted a self portrait after not painting in four years.
We still practiced under a stopwatch while warming up to paint, and jumped right into painting live models.
I had to explore the use of colors more deeply when using acrylic paint to depict the human body. It took many layers of paint and the correct shades to define features of the body and was challenging yet interesting and fun.
We concluded our painting section of class with a two day painting of the same live model. This one was a big step in our process and I experimented the most out of the whole section.
This was the most challenging assignment we had in this medium as we had a lot of time to complete it. It is difficult to call a piece finished, and although I feel like I could work on this piece further to better it, i had to step away from it. Understanding the human form is essential not only to the fashion and product industries, but it is important to understand it in life as a whole. Studying the body but not in a biological way has been more interesting and forms a basis of understanding the way the body is constructed.