Landscape classical architecture: Final drawing 3/3

Here is my final composition for the landscape drawing.
I chose this spot because you could easily see the foreshortening going on through the road and you can tell that the vanishing point will not be that far away.

Orthogonal lines are present in some parts of this, however due to the angle I was viewing and the positioning of the buildings the lines appeared to diverge rather than go parallel.

Not too much attention was paid to the cars however you can see they get less detailed the further away they are which adds a nice effect.
The buildings don't seem that straight and the windows are slightly out of place (and angle) which would be my main issue with this drawing.

In terms of shading I tried to do it as I saw it rather than exaggerating anything so they are quite subtle

Modern interior architecture

Charcoal is good for this kind of architecture because it is easy to show the reflected light and subtle shadows in a bright environment that is quite minimalistic. For example this is a drawing of part of a modern attic room where there is simple build structure with a window, and under the window you can see the light on the large beam reflecting and slowly dropping off as the window stops.
This angle was good because it helped to show the foreshortening that was present along the large beam under the window which gives the drawing depth.
There are both extremes of tone in this image, the bright non-coloured window and the black shadows under the beams where the light isn't hitting as much as in other places. While the beams aren't actually that dark, it makes the image more interesting to look at. It is also an interesting angle because of the window in the rule of thirds and the flow of the beam all the way across the page.

Landscape: Natural landscapes

I tried to keep this image very simple with broad thick lines due to only having a short time to do it in. The various parts of this image are fairly clear in my opinion such as the bridge in the top right and the trees to the side. The water looks quite reflective as it shows the foliage as well as the white patch in the middle that shows the bright sky.






Here I didn't want to be so literal in how this scene looked in terms of colour, so I just used 3 pastels to create this.
I used a variety of shading techniques including hard lines and soft blending of colour with my finger (such as with the water).
There is some foreshortening here especially as your eye wanders down the path and across the bridge in the distance. The horizontal lines across the edge of the path into the canal help the flow of the drawing too.

Figure: Final drawing 2/3

While not a very interesting pose, there are some good parts to this.
First off there is a good sense of balance as you can see the legs and feet pointing slightly outwards which adds stability to the model as well as making it more believable. This added by the shading around the feet helps to add more depth and weight to the image making it look less 2D.
The proportions in this drawing are very good in my opinion, the arms and legs don't appear too high or low and the whole image measures more or less 8 head heights.
The shading of this helps to show the textures of the clothes and how the light is hitting the creases and folds which help to accent the highlights  as well as the slightly darker back and especially under the arm.
The tilted posture of the head helps to add more depth and a more interesting angle than just side on.

Figure: Non-human anatomy

Luckily my cat stayed in this position for long enough for me to get the basic shape and shading down, it's like she knew!
This "pose" has some evidence of foreshortening with the right hind leg as it moves back to lay under the front leg, which adds slightly to the depth of the drawing created by the directional shading based on the direction of the fur. The proportions look pretty accurate to me apart from the front leg that is sticking out between the head and tail, which appears slightly too wide.
I made sure that the shading wasn't soft, so that I could emphasize the direction of the fur. This directional shading adds quite a lot to this because it helps to make the cat appear more round and less flat, especially the curved shading round the gluteals.
Since this cat is very patchy with many different hues of fur, I increased/decreased the pressure of the pencil to achieve the tonal variation you can see.
She doesn't actually have black whiskers, just saying.

Figure: Posture, balance and weight

Here are a mix of both open and closed poses using pastels on coloured paper. I limited myself to using two colours (as well as the paper) so that it didn't become too messy, the paper was used as a mid-tone. It is clear where the light source is and it really helped to pick out the various highlights and shadows over the body due to the raised and lowered muscles in some poses. Due to the poses and helped by the lighting; you can see what body parts the model is using to balance himself because using particular muscles will make them stand out more. As well as this, the feet are directed in a way that show what parts of the body weight is being applied to in order to balance.
There is some evidence of foreshortening in parts of this, in particular the forearms of the blue and purple examples which help to identify the direction the model is facing.

Foreshortening

Foreshortening is an important part of observational drawing because we see it all the time in real life so we need to be able to get it right to create a believable image. It is also important because it means we will feel more comfortable drawing these kind of angles which may help portray ideas across more effectively.

The skeleton above was arranged in a way so that there were many example of foreshortening wherever you viewed it from, as well as giving us more practise for figure drawing. Foreshortening can be seen in various places; such as the arms and legs that are increasing in distance from our view meaning they appear distorted.

Another example in the first image is where the ribcage appears to squash together as it gets further from our view.

Still life composition (With final drawing 1/3)

As a class we arranged various objects together on tables which was useful because it helped us critique each other on what is good/bad about it. We then went around and quickly drew various angles of the arrangements to find which we all liked best.

Here is my final composition after choosing it from the quick sketches.

This composition works because there are no orphaned objects, but there are overlapping objects which creates depth since you can see what is behind what. There are many directions of line to show the positioning of the objects as well as reflectivity and irregularity (in the cloth). The way the cloth is arranged creates varying values of shadow due to the positioning of the light source as well as the other objects in the composition. This variation makes for a more interesting drawing because there is more to look at and not everything is as regular as you might expect it to be. The cloth lines help to navigate your eyes across the image and you can see how the cloth reacts to the other objects by how it bunches up and the shadows that are made. The composition is balanced, as there are varying levels of contrast and colour values across the whole image as well as there being the same amount of "stuff" on each side.

Shading and lighting

In this first drawing you can see how the cast light can effect the shadows created on a simple piece of cloth.
You can see the individual creases of the cloth and the implied position of the light source due to how dark and thick certain shadows are, which is also partially due to the thickness of the cloth. The darkness of the shadows are affected by any overlapping of the material as obviously more layers will create a darker shadow, which gives this drawing some depth.
When making this I tried to do both smooth shadows and strong lines as I feel it adds certain texture to the material as well as looking more interesting.

The second image was done by shading the cast shadow of a skeleton. You can see various effects such as dropoff and stretching due to the light source and its' angle to the skeleton. There are also darker parts to this drawing which are due to the distance of the light to various parts of the skeleton (i.e. the closer the light is to a certain part of the skeleton the darker the cast shadow is; and the way the skeleton has been posed.

Mass and form

In the first picture we can see how simply shading in a different way can add to the perceived mass of an object. Our eyes don't always need complex shading to be able to recognise an object, and so if shading and detail isn't needed, it may be best to do something like I have with the first onion, and how it uses simple lines to show the form and shape, such as the convex curves. Whereas the second onion and the orange are more focussed on the shading to give a sense of mass and how a particular object reflects light, determined by the texture of it. Shading is also the way we show the internal structure of an object (i.e. everything inside the outline) that wouldn't be clear otherwise which can be seen in the second onion where some parts are raised and some lower.

The second image is a simple arrangement of some items I had lying around; sellotape, a glass and a desktop microphone. I made this arrangement in this simple line drawn style to show that you don't need to shade to be able to create depth in a drawing. These objects were also deliberately chosen because they contain many concave and convex curves which can create interesting shapes. It can be useful to do drawings like this because it helps us break down objects into simple shapes which is good for 3D modelling.

Human skeleton refresher

These two drawings show the structure of the skeleton from two different angles. Doing studies like these help us understand the various shapes and sizes of the different components that make up the human body; as well as how they all work together. Since I used the head as a measure for the overall size and spacing of the figure (both height and width) I knew that it was accurate and everything was in proportion. Shading wasn't necessary for this drawing because it was a study of the shapes and sizes of the human anatomy, not how it reflects light.