ONLINE ART COURSE – FIGURES MODULE – COMPLETING THE FIRST PROJECT

As I mentioned in the previous post on this subject, I decided to make my own choice of figures to draw from the complete set. To finish this project, I chose figures five and six.

Figure Five

I really wanted to do this one, as it was such a charming subject. Which one of us, privileged enough to live sufficiently near the sea, has not enjoyed digging in the sand when we were little?

Painting first

Phil gave us different instructions for this one. For previous figures, we had to draw it first, and then add the watercolour. We would then finish with the ink work. For this one, we had to plunge straight in with the watercolour without doing a drawing first. This is always a bit daunting because the eraser is OUT! This was very much an exercise in observation and getting the proportions correct, and for once, I think I suceeded pretty well in this department.

Here is the figure at the end of the painting stage.

I got a bit carried away and made the whole thing a rather dark, and probably added more detail than I needed. I hoped that it would be light enough to see the ink work at the end. I also added more reflections in the wet sand, as I really like this effect.

Again I surprised myself by really enjoying doing this one. I wasn’t looking forward to the figures module but so far it was great fun.

Here is a close-up view of figure five at this stage.

It could probably be a finished watercolour painting at this stage, but I followed along with the rest of the video and added the ink work, as instructed by Phil.

Adding the ink work

Here is the completed picture, with the ink work. This serves to tidy things up a bit, and add more detail.

I realised it really was too dark in places, so I touched it up with a white acrylic marker pen and this improved things a lot. Generally speaking I am quite pleased with the finished result. It’s not perfect, but it will do!

Here’s a close-up.

Figure Six

Phil told us to approach this one in the same way as for Figure 5, starting with the watercolour and adding the ink work afterwards. I have to confess to cheating, though – I drew it in pencil first! This was a fairly complicated drawing and I didn’t want to mess it up.

Here it is, paired with the previous drawing.

These pictures, and the previous two, are all I am doing for this project. There are eight studies in all, and Phil said he did not expect us to do them all in a week. We could always come back later to do additional ones if we wanted. I think I shall call it a day, though, as figures are not really my thing.

Looking ahead to the next project in the module

Now that I have finished this project, the next one is available for download, and I see with a sinking heart that it is yet another charcoal drawing! I really dislike this medium. I shall watch the Project Orientation video and see what Phil has to say about it, and I may choose to work in an alternative medium. After all, the focus in this module is the subject matter (figures) and not the medium. In the subject-based modules, the media selected for each project cover quite a wide range. This is to encourage us to experience working on many different subjects in a variety of media. However, since I have no intention of doing further work in charcoal once the course is finished, I see little point in pursuing it further at this stage. We shall see, though – I may have a change of heart once I have watched the introductory videos.