Well….as promised, I am back to report my progress. As I’ve feared..it looks like my new mentor has ‘tipped’ and now he’s got a sort of a web based quasi-art-school! I can’t fault the guy for trying to make a buck, (God bless him!) and I still want to learn! (Inner hipster...you shut the hell up!) At any rate, at this point I’m taking any opportunity to finally figure this shit out.
So, about 3 weeks ago I was spending a couple of hours per day drawing these simplified heads from various angles and applying the Reilly method rhythm lines. Over the last 3 weeks I’ve been taking really nicely lit photo references of male models ( because of their chisled, easy to identify features), I’ve been laying the rhythm lines on top of the reference directly, then I’ve been re-drawing my rhythm line sketch free-hand next to the original reference like so….
In the process, I’m doing a couple of things. One, I’m building my powers of observation in that overlay process. I’m getting clear in my mind as to what I’m actually seeing, Next, as I build that freehand version of the sketch, I’m working the mental muscle that allows me to measure more accurately visually. I know that there are purists who feel that something like this could be a waste of time. I’ve read William Maughan’s ‘Drawing the head’ and Andrew Loomis’ ‘Figure drawing for all it’s worth’, I’ve taken a few figure drawing classes, hell, I’ve been to art school! Maughan as of the writing of his book back in 2004 felt that only drawing from life is valuable. All I can say is that after doing all of that, doing this is teaching me something more still. This is taking some of the mystical randomness out of the process for me, and I think it’s going to improve my ability to draw from life.
Last week I felt that maybe I was ready to move on from this stage in the process, as I had already done maybe 20 of these. Apparently not quite good enough! During online critique it became clear that I should keep at it. My sense of three dimensions is pretty solid (I’m a sculptor at heart) but my ability to translate that to 2D by hand, using the illusion of perspective drawing while maintaining proper proportions still needed work-so I knocked out maybe 20 more. I’m feeling pretty confident about what I’ve gained as a result of that additional work. As a bonus, I’m seeing some nice improvement in my line work.
For Father’s day my wonderful family purchase for me an Asaro head. If you’re not familiar with what that is, it’s a simplified model of a human head broken down into its most basic planes on one side, and a slightly more complex representation on the other side.
Now I can look at the essential planes of a human head and I can be aware of what they are, and where to look for them. It’s a lot to take in at one or two sittings, but I spend a little time just picking this thing apart mentally every day. I’m starting to memorize it.
Although some of the planes are a little exaggerated, what this model does for me is that it allows me to see how specific planes of the head will be affected by specific lighting conditions.
Loomis starts with an egg shape and starts to break it down from there with a few simple lines. That’s all well and good (for me anyway) until I have to actually render it. There are a few planes-especially around the cheekbone and jaw that have confounded me. As always, as it turns out, there’s somebody who has had this very problem and has done the work. My thanks to John Asaro for taking the time!
Did you know that if three spheres of different sizes are all lit in exactly the same way, that the largest one will be the brightest??? I didn’t either!! John Asaro explained that along with I’m sure some other fun facts in the DVD that came with the head. That one blew my mind so I needed to just shut it off and process that. Incredible!
Now armed with Asaro head, I am working from those basic rhythm lines, using those as landmarks to lay in the planes of the specific head from my photo reference like so:
Between the planes and the rhythm lines that I used to create them, I’ve already got a really good sense of the form that I’m going to be painting later. Already in the sketch of the planes I’m starting to see a likeness to the subject and even a lot of the emotion that is held in the particular orientation of the head and features. This strikes me as a highly logical and analytical approach that I’m going to find highly repeatable. All of this adds up to what I’m really working toward...the ability to paint a solid, reliable, likeness on demand.
So much for this week! I think creating these ‘planes’ sketches is going to occupy the next couple of weeks. I’ll report back with what I’ve learned! After that I will be spending some time on line-weight. See you then!