ONLINE ART COURSE – NEW CHARCOAL PROJECT

This is the final directed project of the charcoal module, and it is a picture of a rhino.

Before starting on the project proper, we have a warm up session, and this time it consisted of three lessons, each one depicting a different animal. These are not completed drawings but exercises in getting the proportions right, and training in observation, drawing the basic shape of each animal. I did add a little shading in mine, though. They were all worked in HB graphite pencil.

For the first one, the giraffe, I used my proportional dividers to get the proportions and angles right, and it did take quite a long time. After this, I watched the video (I know – the wrong way round!!) and decided I really should have followed Phil’s directions because it’s all part of the training. He puts quite a bit of emphasis on observing the shapes of negative spaces, for example, the spaces between the legs, to get an accurate rendering.

For the other two drawings, I did follow his directions carefully, and I don’t think I did too badly.

I do not want to become a slave to the drawing aid, and as one of the members said on the forum, it would be good to use it to check what we have done, and I think this is good advice. If one was trying to draw an accurate portrait of a person or an animal though, I think it would be very useful from the start. I shall certainly use it to create the initial “envelope” when drawing figures, as I did find this a huge challenge when doing that particular project in the graphite module.

I am looking forward to getting started on the rhino drawing, as it’s rather impressive. People’s drawings on the forum are very good.