Figure Drawing with Tommy - Art IV Reflection

Over the last couple weeks, Tommy Van Auken came to our class and taught us more about figure drawing, giving us lessons on both contour and loose gesture. I was grateful for the opportunity to build on the skills we first learned last year, and loved being able to experiment and develop my figure drawing further. I was not only able to learn about different possible techniques from Tommy, but also from my classmates, and I think adding elements that I saw in my own process helped my drawings become more realistic. For example, I found that I preferred figure drawings with more loose, circular searching lines to the drawings I did, which tended to be a bit more jagged. On my last day of drawing with Tommy, I used this technique, and ended up making my favorite drawing of the whole session. I also learned more about the importance of drawing a basic skeletal structure of the whole figure before moving on to smaller details. I often start drawing way too big and run out of room, or draw one piece way bigger than another. By practicing mapping out a skeleton to begin the drawing, I think my figures have gotten more proportional. I learned that paying close attention to negative space and how different parts of a figure relate to one another is also very important to this process.

Figure from day 1

Working with contour

Favorite drawing!