Tracings from and sketches of heads from Andrew Loomis, ‘Drawing the Head and Hands’. I wanted to feel where the lines were when constructing the head so I used layout paper and a pencil to trace some of the head drawings in the book. I thought that by tracing a few drawings, it would improve my memory and maybe muscle memory to quickly and accurately sketch the human head with accurate and convincing proportions. I found this useful as a ‘hand-holding’ exercise to show me how different skull shapes can lead to the variety of facial features I see on a daily basis but I then I quickly noticed without the safety net, my drawings became distorted and become sidetracked by what I think I should do with proportions out of habit, and the instinct was strong to pull away from the method Loomis used which I had been tracing initially. I think it was a good experience, but I felt it was best to learn to construct the human head myself and gradually build up the technique so it becomes instinctive.
Figure construction lines and lines of movement and flow.
I hope you can recognise who this is without me telling you…
This portrait was drawn after previously spending a while researching Van Gogh for extra curricular studies. I was really moved by one of his self-portraits and how he described the emotion in his eyes and his gaunt looking face. The hollows under his cheekbones are haunting and it seems to tell of a life of torment and difficulty. I vividly recalled the ginger hair and beard, the darkness under the eyes, the sharp angular nose and deeply furrowed brow. I saw blue eyes which were pink around the edges with what I perceived as fatigue from troubled sleep. I tried to think about the structure of the skull and how the skin might fold around its angular frame. I also thought quite hard about the source of light and how it would react on each of the angles of Van Gogh’s face.
In my mind, to create a portrait of someone from memory requires either very good photographic memory and/or a strong set of feelings and emotions surrounding the person. For this reason, I feel like sometimes a portrait could be more than a true likeness to a person, and offer more of a resemblance and overall feel of what the personalities or disposition the person exudes. I feel like I’ve tried to work this latter opinion into my drawing of Van Gogh here as I knew that the resemblance wouldn’t be perfectly accurate but I wanted to pick out the physical features he had painted of himself but what he was also recognised for.
I did this by applying darker tones to the eye sockets, mouth and neck to show a more gaunt physique and a dark and moody colour palette for the whole piece which worked well to give an impression of a physical and theoretical dark place which Van Gogh was present in. I chose to work with conté for this drawing as I wanted colour to be a poignant factor of the overall outcome, but also because I wanted the ability to blend and use the tooth of the paper to pick up some graininess to create texture and movement. I used a deep blue to tone down the heat of the orange in the hair and browns and pinks with the blue to describe skin shadows and hollows in the eye socket, and cheeks for example. A few of Van Gogh’s paintings used swirls and warped painted background styles which I wanted to replicate subtly here so I gently swept the conté stick on its side for the background and blended in a circular motion following the contour of the head.
Leading on nicely from Exercise 3, where I produced a portrait from memory of Van Gogh’s portrait, is an area of research exploring artists self-portraits in the historical period. I began my research with Rembrandt who, according to https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/kenwood/history-stories-kenwood/rembrandt-self-portrait/, completed approximately 80 self-portraits in his lifetime through paintings, etchings and drawings. The article on this website was very informative into how his last portrait was produced and I can see that this portrait was a culmination of all the painting techniques he had built up in his artistic career. The various techniques of brushwork used to produce his last portrait range from dry-brushing and scumbling to laying down thick strokes of oil paint. The colour palette he used in his self portraits were not usually vibrant, and he made use of dark shadows adding mystery and atmosphere to his paintings. There always seemed to be a single source of light which illuminated the facial features in his self-portraits and he also painted with mostly soft edges where the tonal gradation was gradual and gentle rather than line-focused and flat block tones like Picasso. after reading background information on Rembrandt, I feel like he, like many others, conveyed his difficult emotions through his self-portraits. The dull, earthy and moody essence of his self-portraits may have been a reflection of the personal difficulties he had in his life.
In comparison, when I look at how Vincent Van Gogh depicts his personal struggles through his brush strokes, I see a completely different approach to his self-portrait. The self-portrait, 1887, that I attempted to draw previously, has a series of individual rough, dabs, stabs, short and long brushstrokes that are swirled and warped in an impressionistic style. although his earlier portraits are more like Rembrandt’s in tone, the colour palette of Van Gogh’s 1887 self-portrait is lighter, with hints of blues and reds; there also seems to be a lighter feel to the self-portrait due to the lack of heavy dark tones representing shadows. Similarly, both artists adopt the same style of pose for their self-portraits: shoulder height and above, sometimes with their canvas, turned slightly away from straight on to the viewer. I also notice that both artists used oil for their chosen medium.
Moving on to investigate more contemporary self-portraiture I was quite intrigued by the wonderful and again, vast variety of styles that some artists had adopted to represent themselves. A few differences I have noticed comparing to historic work:
Some contemporary self-portraiture seems to emit a huge expression of emotion through the artist’s message and overall feeling they deliver through their work. Some paintings and drawings I saw in my studies were not subtle and were very obvious and loud in delivering a feeling or expression on behalf of the artist. The colour palettes are sometimes very vibrant and clashing. Photography, film, three-dimensional models and digital artwork are just a few of the types of media that are now used to create the self-portraits whereas historically, it was predominantly pencil or oil painting I believe. Mixed media has great advantages in pulling together a concept and it seems that contemporary artists have an even wider selection of media to choose from than say Rembrandt or Van Gogh ever did. I feel that although historic self-portraits from Rembrandt and Van Gogh displayed emotions and subtle clues about their difficulties, some contemporary artists feel liberated it seems and do not hold back in their demonstration of feelings or self-representation through self-portraiture. It looks like modern self expression is liberating for the artist, where they face less discrimination compared to cultural and moral restrictions in the historic era. Contemporary self-portraiture seems to offer an artist a completely ‘blank canvas’ for self-expression in a time where personal opinions, stories, thoughts and feelings are accepted amongst a diverse and colourful culture.
Experience and research shows there is no particular way to draw or paint a face. It seems historically, there was an ‘acceptable’ way to paint, and generations of artists pushed those boundaries as time went by, exploring new mediums and styles of painting and drawing. Art movements where formed then superseded by other boundary-pushing movements. Below is a selection of photos that I found when looking through my art history book: E.H Gombrich, The Story Of Art, Phaidon Press Ltd, 1984. Each one of these drawings or paintings gave me an insight into how historical artists have represented the human head. I’ve noted varying techniques and their comparisons here, such as: light or heavy weight applied to the pencil/brush, a light/dark colour palette, realistic/abstract/cubist/impressionistic, three-dimensional/flat, fast and erratic/slow and diligent, block tones/delicate varied tones, sharpness/softness, structurally realistic/warped or distorted, short sharp paint strokes/ long winding strokes, delicate and transparent/ brash and opaque, no background detail/heavily detailed backdrop, tone dominant/line dominant.
I am not really surprised about the variety of different ways artists have chosen to draw heads or self-portraits since man started learning to manipulate materials and make marks for an intended outcome. I feel like it is human nature to want to create with the hands and put our own expression into it. Of all the people who have learnt to manipulate materials, there is considerable variation in experiences, society and culture that have influenced the artist or practitioner’s views and techniques to execute a concept on the human head. I am really intrigued how some of these more abstract drawings and paintings were accepted or viewed at the time when other artists were producing incredibly life-life pieces. I would really like to experiment with a variety of these styles with my drawings of heads and see how it feels to produce a piece of work like this but also how I could develop it and take an idea further.
Roussaeu and Matisse’s style of painting remind me of Frida Kahlo’s work and self-portraits.
Contemporary also offers a rich variety of differences in recordings of the human head. Of course, we are present in the modern day, as as such, further exploration into producing studies of the head/face have taken place and with it, technology has introduced another format in which to mix media. Drawings and paintings produced digitally offer a different expression than those drawn or painted in the more traditional fashion. I have enjoyed looking at contemporary works on this topic and particularly liked the clever use of prints, paper cut outs, mixed media, photography, collage and loose representational work to describe a person’s face and/or head. Artists are also using unwanted salvaged scrap materials to produce their composition, such as Nick Gentry and his face paintings on wood and computer components with oil paint.
I have noticed that a few contemporary artists explore their sexual orientation, social status, mental well-being etc. through their portraiture and these often offer vivid uses of colour and surrealist or abstract pieces. I also noticed that contemporary works depicting the face or head can often be seen in works that are meant to make a statement, generate debate and discussion or even explore the current generation and its struggles being experienced. For example, when I look at Banksy’s graffiti work, he intentionally masks, pixelates, adapts or omits the faces of those he paints to make a statement and contribute to the message of his work.
After watching a video on the National Portrait Gallery website (link in bibliography) it encouraged me to think about why portraits or drawings and paintings of faces produced? Is the focus more on the sitter/subject than the artist and their style? It seems that faces seem to evoke a lot of emotion and judgement from the viewer and the artist can use this to their advantage when trying to evoke a particular feeling to the drawing. I see some contemporary work, much like some historic, as a great expression of the artists perception of the face he or she is recreating in their work. It’s as if they are combining their personality with the sitters physical and emotional attributes.
The top two images are the first preparatory workings and drawing of my own head. This exercise was definitely more challenging than drawing someone else’s head because I and my family know exactly what I look like. Obvious and subtle differences between my drawings of my face were detected by those who know me well. It is obvious that the human brain is very intelligent and has a remarkable ability to memorise and recognise patterns in faces; the familiarity must flag up in this drawing but a message gets sent to say “something’s not quite right.” It is interesting to see what I thought I saw and how I translated this onto paper but also, how my family reacted to it. I think people can judge portraits very quickly based on their likeness to a person. If it is a realistic attempt at describing the portrait then people can be quite honest if the similarities don’t match up. In my case, I feel even more determined to try again and get it more accurate, so my drawing looks more like myself! I think measuring is definitely a large portion of getting the structure of the face right, looking for clues of the cheekbones, the eye socks, the chin and jaw. Once the skeletal structure is set up, following the muscles and skin would help to shape the face. I felt like this was more successful in my second attempt.
The second drawing is definitely more similar to my actual features, again the eyes are too small, but I think I managed to pick out the cheekbone and nasal highlights well with a putty eraser. This second drawing took me nearly 5 hours from start to finish and I think I could have ‘messed about’ with it for longer. Ultimately, there is only so much adjusting of the light and lifting out the charcoal I could do when I knew something about the structure and angle/shape of features were wrong.
I did have to readjust the skull; I had drawn my forehead a lot more rounder than it actually is and so I amended this which brought more of a familiarity to the drawing. I decided to work with charcoal as I wanted a really soft and blend-able material to work with so I could smooth over the skin and pick out highlights and lighter tones. I also knew I would be doing a lot of reworking so erasing some lines would be helpful to me. When asking my family what they thought of this second portrait they agreed that is was a lot more ‘like me’ and they recognised similarities but again, the eyes were the most commented on feature. This made me reflect on which features are most recognised in a familiar face and why? How quickly does the human brain detect the familiarity and is it linked to our ancestors when it was a matter of life of death to recognise familiar and safe faces quickly? I also thought about the differences between how I see myself compared to how others perceive me. I see myself in the mirror but others see me with their own eyes and perception.
Comparing the two drawings, I think it is safe to say the second attempt seems more committed, less tentative. The tones laid down are more decisive and I feel that most people attempting this exercise would have developed their way of working and made use of the observations from the first drawing for the second attempt, therefore I would imagine the second attempt is more accurate in likeness to themselves. This is certainly the case with my drawings and I think I looked at the first drawing and realised how the angles and proportions were wrong and made a mental and physical note to adjust these for the second try. By the second drawing, I learned not to focus on the detail of any individual feature until the basic construction was laid down on the support first. Although there are still ‘corrections’ to be made, I think I was able to not become so overwhelmed with making the picture so like me and just worked through each stage gently, building up in layers with different techniques but constantly looking up at my face for reference. It is crucial for me to really observe the structure of the skull, then the muscles and then the proportions and angles of the rest of the facial features, rather than start adding detail to the eyes and nose and lips to get the likeness from the beginning; I feel like a portrait drawing is a slow transformation at this stage.
For sketches and studies of facial features, please see Dr 1, Pt 4, Pr 4, Ex 1.
Above is my attempt at drawing an entire head. I found the reference photo online through google and I feel like it is quite a relief to have finished the drawing and put together all of the knowledge and techniques I have learnt so far. I am aware that there is plenty of practice needed to really refine my technique of representing a well-constructed and convincing drawing of a head but as the drawing above was my first attempt, I am generally happy with the outcome and what I have gained in terms of experience through the execution of this drawing. Upon reflection, I feel the eyes are too close to the eye brows and the eyes are slightly too small for the eye sockets. I also think the bottom and bridge of the nose is too small for the face. I would like to try some more studies of faces in my sketchbook every week to gradually improve my measuring and observation techniques.
Drawing groups of people is definitely a lot more challenging than drawing the single moving figure. Firstly, there is an awful lot more of visual information to take in simultaneously, without becoming overwhelmed, and secondly, thinking about proportions and scale for the overall composition sometimes needs to be done instinctively as if you think about it for too long, then the figures have moved and the scene and the moment/atmosphere may have passed you by. I also think that after drawing a single moving figure and a group of moving figures, that when I draw from a live setting, I am more likely to apply less detail to each of the moving figures in the group because I have more visual information and figures to draw in a short time frame unless of course a photo is taken for later reference or the figures are stationary for a long period of time, enough for me to capture the scene and the atmosphere successfully. I sketched this piece above from a reference photo from google, which isn’t ideal, but lock-down restrictions are lifting soon and I am sure to find groups of people local to me, who I can draw as a snap shot in my sketchbook.
The above photos of my charcoal sketches are a combined effort for the ‘energy’ exercise and ‘single moving figure’ exercise. I had a clear idea in my head that I wanted to express movement with big, broad and confident sweeps and strokes of charcoal. I used similar techniques in the 1st and 3rd drawings of the mountain bikers and a repeated figure increasing in strength of tone for the dancer in the middle. I had an experience back in Part One of Drawing 1 when I blew charcoal dust off my work and it looked like an explosive effect, I have utilised this here for my mountain bikers to represent movement but also to show the dirt flying out from under the tyres because of the speed and angle of attack I drew these figures at. For the dance, I remembered seeing a drawing by an artist where he left some previous markings only semi-erased in this work so there were repeated images of the same figure in this composition. I loved this effect and thought I could utilise it here to show the stages of transition the dancer was travelling through.
I will be constantly adding to these figures in my sketchbook, as the student handbook suggests and I aim to capture my single moving figures in a variety of different viewpoints and actions: walking, jumping, running, bending down, stretching up etc. Now lock-down restrictions are easing, I will be taking advantage of the freedom and people-watching where possible. I quite like the idea of using a technique of using a smudge-able medium so I can describe moving limbs with a slight blurring to the moving edges.
Here I try to experiment with charcoal and watercolour after investigating loose and expressive figure drawing through YouTube. I found a few tutorials, links posted below, and they inspired me to be brave and consider an even looser and more figurative drawing with a mixed media approach. I created a triptych of drawings as I wanted to follow on from the theme of ‘movement’ which I had an essence of gentle energy between each pose. I thought hard about all of the techniques that I had learnt from Part Four about the figure and tried to culminate them in these drawings whilst retaining a little of my own expressive style.
Proportions all over the place, forgot to check measurements and got carried away getting the whole figure drawn whilst trying to remember foreshortening.
rib cage too wide, lower legs and feet not big enough for foreshortening effect to be convincing, liked the painterly technique
Lounging figure drawing – watercolour
This lounging figure drawing was a big risk for me to take as it included a lot of challenging aspects, for example, foreshortening, convincing figure construction, accurate colour palette and application of the watercolour medium. I was aiming for a realistic portrait and I am reasonably happy with what I produced. I did a bit more preparatory work in comparison to the other figure drawings in this exercise as I was simply unsure and a bit nervous walking in uncharted territory but I think it was a great experiment and has given me the confidence to progress further with this and see if I can push myself a little further to explore this medium and style of figure drawing. I do feel that if I had stepped back away from the drawing before I applied the watercolour, I would have seen that the foreshortening isn’t quite successful in that the proportions represent that the head is larger than it should be if the model was reclined away from the viewer. A lesson learnt for next time. I worked really hard on trying to identify the structure underneath the skin for this figure drawing and I think if the proportions had been more aligned with the effects of foreshortening, this would have been a more convincing outcome. Next time, I would also like to have applied a bit more of a contextual grounding for the model as the shadows which suggest she is lying down needed to be stronger.
Seated figure drawing – charcoal
For this charcoal figure drawing, I played around with the idea of using the watercolour medium again once I had decided on my construction lines. I decided to go against this and opt for something a little more blend-able by my finger tips where I could grasp a little more control over describing the tonal values. I think the outcome is quite successful, although there is something proportionally, not quite right about the figures upper right shoulder and arm, and possibly the lower left arm and head; they seem a little too small for the lower half of the body. I like how I have described the light with the charcoal and tonal variation. I tried to add in areas of reflected light to give a bit more realism. In contrast to my thoughts of a heavier support for the model in the previous figure drawing, I actually prefer a really light suggestion of a table on which the model is sitting for this charcoal drawing. I think it is just enough to suggest there is context to the models seated position, but not enough to take away from the smooth flowing lines of the figures shape, form and pose. And for this reason, I haven’t added the figure’s shadows on the support she sits on.
Standing figure drawing – Indian ink and chopstick
This final figure drawing is by far my favourite of the three. It may have something to do with my natural loose and expressive voice coming through here. I found it a lot easier to transfer my construction drawing of the figure into an abstract Indian ink drawing. I used a chop stick to transfer the ink as I wanted a real edginess and abstract feeling to the drawing, an essence of the figure and something to be read by the viewers brain, a drawing they have to look for patterns to understand and read the image. I took inspiration from my experiments and studying of the drawings in Robert Kaupelis’ Experimental Drawing, Watson-Guptill, 1980 which I also previously discussed in Part Four. The support colour for this figure drawing is actually a consequence of using a lamp in the evening to take a photo. This happy accident gave me a great idea: to try using different coloured supports for my figure drawing. This would enable me to use say, a nude/neutral colour as the lightest tones and build up from there with darker tonal variation. If I were to change something about this drawing, I would suggest that the figure’s right leg came in at a bit more of an angle underneath herself as it almost suggests that the model is leaning on something to support her weight with her hip and elbow. I understand this would then result in me needing to adjust the angle of the shoulders and hips to ensure the line of balance and centre of gravity is maintained for this unsupported standing figure drawing. Other than that, if it is not too bold to say, I really like the outcome of this piece and would like to experiment further with different coloured inks and supports to see the different directions I could take this.
Laura Baker 522918 Learning Log - Drawing 1 