I went to a very fun class today with my friend Pat, who is a neighbor and artist also. The class was held in the back room of one of my favorite restaurants, and taught by D.K. Richardson, an excellent pastel artist and portrait artist. One of the things she had us do was contour drawing, where you look at the object being drawn, and as you following the contour with your eye, you draw the same thing with your hand – without looking at what you are drawing. Short marks, checking often to see how far you are off, not sketching, but really trying to tie your hand and your eye together, while leaving your brain out of the exercise.
face contour, 6b pencil
It was hard, it was fun, and definitely something different. I’ve tried this before on trees or still lifes, but never with a person. I made her face too wide, but other than that, liked what I ended up with during the 15 minute exercise. We also drew in the highlight and shadow shapes.
I don’t intend to ever become a portrait artist, but I would like to eventually put people in my pastel paintings. Generic people that nobody knows. So these classes are excellent practice. And as long as I keep practicing, I will hopefully keep getting better as an artist. Hopefully.
2 responses so far ↓
1 JO // Aug 13, 2010 at 9:19 pm
You draw soooo well. I am amazed, and well, a bit jealous.
Sigh…….
2 Regina // Aug 13, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Jo – you can see I didn’t put a photo of the model on here.
I do love drawing, but her face came out too wide – if I folded the page, it might have looked like her. It was a very fun exercise though – I’ll probably try it again. Thank you!
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