Planes Of The Head Drawing

• Lesson Details
• Transcript
• References

Join Ukrainian-born artist Iliya Mirochnik as he passes on a 250-year-old academic method preserved at the Repin Academy in Saint Petersburg, Russia and seldom taught outside of the Academy and never before on camera.

The Russian Academic drawing and painting approaches were uninterrupted by the modern art movements that transformed representational art in the West, and as a result, they provide a unique and clear lineage to the greater art traditions of the past. As a powerful approach that is both constructive and depictive, it combines the two methods that prevail in contemporary representational art.

In these three drawing Courses, we have set out to condense the entire program, spanning over eight years into a logical, step-by-step procedure. We have made improvements and added resources and exercises to explicitly drive home the concepts that are required to work in this approach.

We have also structured the course so that it is not only useful for professional and experienced artists but also artists with no drawing experience whatsoever.

The first course: the Fundamentals is our most comprehensive beginner-level course to date, including everything you need to get started.

In the final lesson in the Fundamentals course, you will be combining all of the concepts and training you have learned thus far. Using the stretched canvas that you made at the beginning of this course you will draw John Asaro's planes of the head sculpture from the photos provided. You will focus on turning form, establishing clear planes, clearly showing your light source and developing proper values and value relationships.

The New Masters Academy Coaching Program directly supports this Course. If you enroll in the coaching program, you can request an artist trained in the Russian Academic Method including Iliya Mirochnik himself. Click here to enroll in the Coaching Program.

Materials

• Graphite pencils
• Kneaded and Hard Erasers
• Sanding Block
• Utility Knife
• Roll of Paper, Smooth Sketchbook paper
• Staples
• Staple gun
• Easel
• Light source

Beginner Friendly

25314 views

103 likes

Choose one video.

So now that we have been able to put
into practice all of the principles that we have
been talking about up until now,
let's take a look at the head in front of us.
John Asaro sculpted this model that he calls the planes of the head
and it gives us an idea of what the
structure of a head might look like
if simplified into planes.
I think that this assignment is going to be a perfect
segway into the more complex assignments
to come, as well as allow us
to practice and reinforce the principles that we have been
practicing up to this point.

So as you see, I've put my panel
with the stretched paper up on my easel. This is the first time that you'll be
working with stretched paper on panel.
And you see that the way the paper
tightly stretched on
a panel will react differently to the weight of your hand,
pencil and especially your
eraser. But you'll experience all of this
when you start working.
Okay, so
in front of us we have just a
slightly - a slightly
more complex
version of everything that we have
been doing up until now. So we're going
to begin this the exact same way.
So I want you
to disregard
for the most part everything except
the head. And
begin to just pencil in
the outlines, the angles that you can clearly
see along the contours.
And
start putting them in entirely from observation
and then go back in and use
all the tools that we have and all the techniques
to see if you were on point.
So I'm just going to start placing
his neck
but we're not gonna take it all the way down
because our assignment here is not
necessarily to analyze a head but to just
see how everything that we've been talking about applies
to what we have here.
So once you have everything in place, in terms of the outlines,
I'm gonna go back
in because I feel like the
line that I have here is actually more at a tilt. But I'm just going to make sure.
I'm gonna use one of the needles as a horizontal
constant, take the angle, bring it over, and I
was correct in analyzing my own mistake, which is good.
So we're gonna take that out a little bit more.
But what
you want
to do as soon as possible is essentially to begin
constructing the head. And so a way
that you could begin is if you look for the
point of intersection between this plane of
the
orbit of the eye and
this plane of the head,
this plane of the forehead. And then find that same point
on the other - on the side that is
closest to you. And so, for this
I would also establish
that connection using
the knitting needles.
And so that is the angle. And take that angle
all the way across. And then
let's see if you were right. And then the next
I kind of arbitrarily - I place that point but
now is the time to also take a proportional measurement
so I'm going to go from the back of the head
to that point and then from that point to the
right side. And
I'm going to see how many times
this part that is in front
fits into the side.
And it's just slightly under
it's slightly under
two times.
So it's clearly
closer
even without taking a
measurement. One and two.
And then if we slightly pull back on the back of the head,
the occipital bone, we aren't
getting into any of the anatomy
right now but I just wanted to
call it what it is. And I think we're much closer.
So from this point
you can see this arch.
Which is an important plane that signifies
all the planes that are on - so if you were to think about -
it's easier to show sometimes - if you think
of the head as a box
from this point to that point is
the - is one side of the box and everything
off of this edge is the side
plane of the box.
So once we have that in line, I
am going to -
I'm going to
find a line
and I'll take it all the way across for the
plane that we have up here on the forehead.
And now if we cut
this in half and we find
a center
line, a line that will
divide everything to the left side of the face and the
right side of the face or the left side of the head and the right side of the head
then it'll allow us to take a point
that we find on one side and
then transfer it over to the other
while keeping the illusion
of symmetry.
And keep in mind that you might
have to - there are corrections
that are going to be made the whole time. So if you have this axis here
you're going to have to move that axis
along
the entire head.
So if I were to simplify this once again into a
box,
and after we establish our
central line which, on a box, is easy to do by simply
crossing the diagonals as we have
countless times
then
if you establish a point here, understanding
perspective will allow you to
take these lines
across and having them slightly converge into
a vanishing point. So for here
all we have to do is extend
that - so if you
imagine this as completely flat
(drawing)
you are
always
working within the box.
(drawing)
Then everything here is a side plane,
everything here is a front plane and you have now
adjusted this central line on the plane of
a box to be the center line on a more organic shape.
So let's continue.
So there are a number of these
planes that we see in front of us that run perpendicular to our center line.
And we need to get them all before we move on.
So here we have the top of the forehead, here we have
this part that moves up. I don't want to explain too much
about anatomy or the construction of a skull because
we're going to get into that.
But I think you can -
you can already see how everything
that we've spoken about is beginning to apply.
(drawing)
So I'm just continuing all the way.
That's the plane of the lower lip,
that's the plane - top of
the chin. That's a plane
where the chin comes out and then begins to - this is a plane
that moves back in. And so here we have just established
a few of these points.
And then it so happens
that the plane that we see extending
upwards from here,
the top of it is perfectly
horizontal. It lines up with my
eyes, which happens to be
our horizon. And so
now that we have that plane and we've sort of begun to work out
the plane changes along the front of the face,
we can start to see where there is some connections.
So, for example, there's this curve and you can
see the angle between the end of - the corner of this plane rather -
and
the end of this arc and then you
can take this arc in again and then you can
also connect from this point to this point.
And now you can
see a structure beginning to appear on the
cranium. Now I just want to
establish this very important
front plane of the forehead.
And see we haven't even done anything with eyes or any of this stuff.
So from here
a small, like a small
change in planes, a small edge, but if you establish one edge on one side -
on one side of our central line, then we have
to try to find it on the other. And then
once we have them, we take them across.
Even though that's not a plane change, you still want to align everything
according to...Right so, this'll apply to
every single part. So if you're working on the socket, on the
socket of the eye, you start on one side and you
immediately go to the
other side, even before you complete it on one side.
You have to be constantly
working on both sides
of your center line. So here
now I'm going to move this in
and we are nearing the bridge of the nose.
We're not gonna take that any further right now.
Always go back and see if
these lines that we made - always
go back and see if they are
parallel to one another.
Or slightly converging.
(drawing)
So we're going to ignore at the moment
all of these bumps
and changes in the front plane of
the nose because we're more concerned with the angle of the nose
and the placement of the line in general.
So from here -
and as you see I'm taking you through all -
I'm taking you through this approach exactly the same
way that we did
each individual
geometric structure
as well as our
still life composed of multiple geometric structures.
Beginning -
(drawing)
we're beginning to structure the head without
tonality. So I have that line, I must have this line.
(drawing)
And I'm going to erase that line simply to
avoid any kind of confusion.
Okay so let's move on. So from
this point here we see
some changes in plane that correspond to
the socket of the eye and it's important -
it's important
(drawing)
to make sure to mark all of those changes. And we might have
to change them. And then you can see that this is
kind of a little softer curve because
everything here is one plane. But the important thing right now
is to just see where the height of this is in relation to
base of -
the base of the nose. And so, if you've noticed I'm still not
too concerned with the proportions.
I want to get something on the page even if
it's wrong, before I go in and start thinking
about the proportions.
So for example here
it's becoming
obvious to me that what I have here
is a little bit off. So my central line here actually is off so let's move it over.
(drawing)
Okay. And so some of these angles we're going to have
to compare
and then also, let's
begin thinking about some of these proportions. But
without
spending too much time on them. So all I want to see is the distance
from the bottom of the chin to the base of
the nose and see how many times
it fits when I move this up.
So from the base of the chin to the base of the nose and I move it up and it hits
in this head to slightly above
the plane that we have here.
That's right, I think we're good. So
the only proportional measurement that
I'm going to take at the moment. So
without moving into these smaller structures and planes
I'm going to actually begin to move out
towards the back of the head. You can see how this line
can be - they're actually connecting
with this arc that you saw. Now the arc itself -
I think I have a little too -
these angles, I'm questioning them.
I think this angle, this line, comes out more
which might actually put the arc into its proper place
and then here I think there's more of
a curve, more of a sweep. And by moving that point out
I'm correcting it. So a lot
like when we are
adjusting our shadows after placing half tones,
a lot happens here that when you simply move a point
over, or a line, you're going to have to go in and
change a lot of the lines around it. And that's just part of
the process. So now that I'm beginning to have
this line of
the jaw. I just wanna see
if I - I wanna see an angle between the point
of this area known as the angle of the jaw and compare it to
a point that I already have. So I'll just
I'll go with the point we have right here.
(measuring)
Moving it over, I see it
as right here. And then
what I would like to do is just to
place my needle so that it's
on that point that I just marked
and then I place it completely horizontally and see where it ends up
in relation to
the front part of this place. Okay so it should hit -
and I just keep that line and it hits pretty much around,
like right underneath,
the lower lip. So we're gonna have to keep that in mind.
And, of course, you can
place that right now or you can just
keep it in mind and move on.
It's a good exercise to train your
memory.
So I see a few curves there, I see - and
so and as you see it's
just as if we are working on a slightly more complex
soccer ball. So
I'm not going to do anything else right there just yet.
I see that actually where I placed
the neck might be off.
But I do want to place the sort of the underside of the
jaw.
And then take the point of intersection
between the underside of the jaw and far side
of the neck that I see here and just take a vertical up
and see where it lands. And it's gonna be a little bit in
from this point right here. And then you can just place
that line here and
so yes, I do have to move the neck
slightly forward.
(drawing)
Okay so i think it's coming -
it's beginning to look a little bit more like the head
in front of us. And it's feeling quite structured,
mainly because we're spending so much time thinking of
each of these planes. So
in a head a lot of times
in order to place the ear
you take the top of the ear
and you see where it lines up with the eye, for example.
And you take the bottom of the ear and you see where it lines up with
the base of
the nose or the upper lip or any of that. Here, we can use the
angles that we already have. You can see how this line right here,
which is extremely important
and we'll talk about it when we're
talking about a skull and a human head, but we can
just use that to place our ear.
We might though
have to take a line across and see where the bottom of the ear -
and I feel it's approximately in between the upper lip and the base
of the nose, so somewhere here. Let's not get into any
of the planes in the ear
just yet. So as you see we're focusing mainly
on the larger, structural
planes of the whole head and then we'll slowly
start to carve in and focus on
the individual planes of the ear,
the mouth, the nose,
and so on. The eye. So here I see a nice
arch sweeping all the way in but there's a bit of room
behind it.
We can take that in from there.
And
if we can see this line of the back of the head,
it's a plane that has a curvature so we're going to see a little before the
it begins to turn around and away from us rather.
And you can see a little bit of a plane. And so I think
with all these exercise and especially the one
we're doing now, is allowing you to see is that
the contours are not arbitrary
but they're describing the structure of the form and they're
giving you a plane. So obviously if you were to
copy a line here it would give you
a line that might even be perfectly accurate. But if we really analyze -
and this head definitely helps us, you can see that
these lines all correspond to
different planes at different orientations.
So we're gonna take this
all the way and I'm sure by now you can see
how much easier it is, at least I find it easier,
to work on this piece of paper
that's stretched on panel.
We haven't done too much of the -
too much
work with our eraser but
you'll see how much easier it is -
you see how much easier it is to erase
anything you might want to erase and have the paper
and might want to stay in one place.
And you'll
definitely
see the advantage of this when we start
working a lot larger.
(drawing)
So here's some lines
of the forms of
the neck. I will
take them down up to a point but I'm not so concerned
with the neck at the moment.
Okay, so I think
it might be time to start
inching closer towards some of
the smaller planes.
So let's start with
the nose. So the overall
structure we can
outline
and then
before we move on, I think it's important
to really
analyze and
all of these
changes along that line because they
correspond to a plane that's in here.
So we're taking - we're just
observing them at the moment but we are taking them across
so that you keep a symmetry.
(drawing)
And then here we have a
change of plane as
a plane that's angling upwards
begins to angle downwards.
(drawing)
And then you can make the corrections as you go.
So if we now look closely
we can see what each of these lines
corresponds to inside of the form.
Inside of this area that might be a little harder to see because primarily it's
in shadow. But we're not concerned with shadows
at the moment. But they are inescapable
fact of life.
(drawing)
So -
and if you are interested in seeing what's really happened
you can just come up and look
or look from a different angle
because you want to
understand what's in front of you.
And this is a change of a plane.
(drawing)
So we're going to just
take our time and keep
at it. So I need to look around a little bit.
So you're almost thinking like a
sculptor where he'll constantly be
walking around the sculpture
in order to
understand it from all sides. Now this is a plane
and you can see how each of these
changes along this edge corresponds to a plane.
(drawing)
Even these small ones.
And if you need to make
adjustments to the angle,
you might as well,
there's no point
stopping yourself from making
any changes
especially if you feel that you've - if you've put a lot of
energy into something and then you find out its wrong, it's sometimes hard
to just kind of erase the whole thing and start again but I assure you
it's worth it.
And this line is actually a little more curved so I'm gonna get a little more
specific with that change. Okay so
we've come a little bit closer to -
come a little bit closer to
the forms on the side place of the nose
and let's move from these planes
into the eye. So we already
have the sort of
the line of the brow in place but,
once again, each of these changes along that line
corresponds to a plane change. So
the plane that we have right here
(drawing)
from the point
that we have here, there's going to be a change in plane from here to here.
And so, it's easiest
to kind of - to analyze
and think of the planes at the same time as you're beginning
to insert the eye. And -
(drawing)
and I'm - and also I
start by working from the outside in this case
but I'm trying to be as aware as possible of what each of those
lines represents.
I actually feel like maybe this point is too high. I'll
take it again, I'll look. That point to the
base of the nose
seems alright but it feels off so I'll bring it down
If anything I'll move it back up again later.
Okay. So where are we?
So
(drawing)
now there's some
plane changes that are obvious. And here you have a number of points
that, by connecting, them
you will establish the changes that you need.
This actually pulls out a little bit more and then this pulls in
and there we have that line. So we can see
the changes along that form.
So
now let's carve up, essentially, the eye.
by finding all these plane changes.
(drawing)
So we have a few planes there.
(drawing)
We have an angle here that's giving us a plane that's
turned away from us but we can still see it. It's turned towards our
light source - oh and there an eye begins to appear.
And then we pull it back.
Okay so it's coming together.
Now the other eye - and so
I have turned the head in a way that the planes are
more simplified. This head is
designed in a way that you have simplified
planes on one side and slightly more complex,
plainer
divisions on the other. I wanted to stick
with the more simplified planes
for the purpose of this exercise.
So - but I am going to begin to place the other eye, the other eye
already looks like an eye, it's not only a form, it has an upper lid
and the eyeball itself and all of that stuff.
But we hardly see it so I'm just going to
kind of hint at it but just make sure it aligns.
So you take a point and you find that point on the other side.
And now I think this line isn't as dark as it should be
and so just going to - I'm going to
connect them so that we have
the planes on either side of our front plane.
Okay so it's time
to move on, to erase this line because it's
sort of throwing off our axis
and I'm going to not start from the outside but I'm going to
take the plane
right here actually a little further from
the wing of the nostril
(drawing)
and I'm going to just inch towards the upper lip.
And it's important
to get every point
that you can see on one side and transfer it to
the other. There's a lot of lines there so I can't
see.
(drawing)
Hmm. Nope. I'm going to pull
this further back. So I'm going to
go from here and then into
here so that should be where -
so here I went completely by eye. I just - I lined
up that line with where it intersects with the nose.
And then from there,
I can begin to structure this
this plane in the center.
(drawing)
Now all of these parts have a name but I'm
not -
I don't want to confused anyone with added
terminology. I think we
just need to approach this
the same way that we did our soccer ball, as best as we can.
So some of
the planes of the lip, some of the
lines and then just thinking about what they mean
and then make your corrections.
(drawing)
And here
beginning on the lower lip. And then we have a
front plane, which is one that has to align with all our other,
it's not so much - well, it's a front plane but it's
a line that's perpendicular to our center line.
All of these -
so we have to keep in mind
and these are the ones that we have to treat
very carefully so that we have proper alignment
in space.
(drawing)
Okay. Okay we're getting there, we're getting there.
So from this change of plane between the
front plane of the lower lip and the planes that are turning away, the side planes
you can see there's a corner on the plane here on the side
and then
there's a trapezoidal
plane
that is curving in
right before we hit the top of the chin.
And if you look from the side,
it's not only trapezoidal but it kind of -
the corners turn down a bit to accommodate
the curvature of the chin. And then we can
go from there and establish sort of the continuation of our side plane here.
So here
we
connect
this point to this point to establish the, sort of the front plane of the top of the
chin.
Can we see - we can slightly -
the other side of that plane. That's about it.
(drawing)
And we're gonna
move the chin up a little bit, mainly because -
so I'm not even going by the overall proportions, I'm just going by the proportions
of the height to the width of the plane of
the chin. So I'm
kind of going over everything piece by piece, but at the same time
thinking of the whole. So then
let's reinforce some of these lines before we make sure our perspective -
our proportions, my apologies - are correct.
Make sure to have
that point, that change, see where it is in relation to, say,
that point, what is that angle?
There's a slight tilt, I feel it's more like
this. I think we're good. it might be even a little bit closer.
It's fairly minor.
So
now we need...
We have this plane, move this up and then there's also a small
plane on the curvature
of the jaw that sort of
curves around and we'll
talk more about
all of those anatomical specifics
in the future. And here
well see - and you can even see
how like just the change in this line corresponds to the change
that you see on the forms of the neck.
This is the front then it begins to turn away here
so that you can show that side plane of
the form in front, the -
we'll just call it an Adam's apple for now.
(drawing)
It's an important part of the cartilage of the larynx.
(drawing)
We'll get to that. And then
we go from there. And see,
occasionally I see a curve and I want to explain
that curve without
half tones or shadows.
I make sort of - I draw
a line around its curvature.
as you see here. And I
will be doing a lot of that.
But here since all of the
planes are right in front of us
there's not much need. Okay
so let's get into the ear.
Let's start with this sort of
this front plane here. The front
plane of this part of the ear that sort of just
wraps around. It has a name, don't worry about it.
And then the top plane there.
(drawing)
And then there's this
angle before we begin to move
down.
This is a time to just compare that point to that point and see what the angle is.
I think we're close. And then
let's move this curve all the way until we hit
the earlobe.
Just - let's make sure of the placement of the bottom of our ear again
just to be sure. I'm just taking it across. And
it's slightly higher than the halfway point between the base of the nose
and the upper lip. So it's somewhere there.
I think we're alright.
But I'm not even gonna
finish that right now. I think it's -
there's this, this is - you can kinda see
the attachment of the ear and that's a plane of its own
and then we're gonna continue into this
line that goes off of the cheekbone to the ear.
(drawing)
I'm gonna get the proper curve there.
And then
I'm just gonna take that line,
that sort of the angle of the ear there. It'll help us place
the angle of the ear. I'll take it all the way down and I'll move
with this front plane and I'll place it.
And then let's get into some of these smaller ones.
There's a lot of them.
(drawing)
Then we hit that mark, change of plane.
I just wanna see what's happening
there. So, at times, what you - because it's
unavoidable that you're going to be seeing the shadows,
at times the shadow's gonna eat up a part of your plane.
And so you wanna really look and see
where the plane is if you were to disregard
that shadow.
So where are we here? And then here
I think proportionally I can make this upper part a little bit smaller
(drawing)
and then I'll move
this across and
see here I didn't even show the plane, I showed the
curvature and now I show the plane. So at times showing that curvature
can help with finding the plane itself.
Take this. And now
I'll complete this by taking it all the way down
the corner, this angle is a little more tilted.
And so now we have a little bit more of a placement on that ear.
It's - just kinda move your
head back between the
head itself and
your drawing and see what jumps out
at you as potentially incorrect.
This plane that we start with, I think it's narrower.
(drawing)
And is it properly angled? I'll check.
(drawing)
Okay, okay.
Look around and there is a little bit
of
that line on the other side. So that edge.
But it's not - it's hard to see, it's not
necessarily helping us. And I feel like
the plane here tapers.
And
becomes - so the amount of space we have here,
thinking completely two dimensionally
the amount of space you have here in this shape on your
page becomes smaller as you move up so
we're gonna keep that consistent.
with what's in front of us. And then we move back and I just would like to
take a look at the back and see where
this line - okay I see it. And there's this
point that we have and you can just follow this line
all the way to that point. And you see how simply taking a line
and observing a line can't always give you
a form.
You have to follow a line
all the way to its -
to what that line means, what it
represents. Okay. So I think
we're alright. I would
just do a little bit here to lock this in
place. I'm actually - I'm tempted to start -
sort of the
clean some things up here and begin with the shadows and then
if we feel it's necessary to continue some of the planes
of the neck based on the
on how everything begins to compose on
our panels, then we'll just go ahead and add a neck.
Okay so I'm comfortable with where everything is
at the moment. We've established the structure of the head
and the placement of the planes. Now
let's move on to shadows.

Okay, so when
we left off we had already established
the placement, the proportions, and the basic
structure of the head on paper. Now I
actually had a little bit of time away and I
can't stress enough the importance of taking the time
relax.
After a prolonged period of time of working on the same piece of paper
your eye can get extremely tired and you lose the
critical abilities you need to keep improving
analyzing and moving everything along
Okay. So now that I've had
some time away, I
just want to go over some of the
things I already have on the page and just move
my eye between
the drawing and the
our model. And just try
to see what really stands out as
off. And I'm seeing that there's something
with how long
that line is.
Everything else I'm more or less
satisfied with. I can see the - before I move onto that line, just taking a look
at the outer edges I see that there's more of a turn in
more of a curve
into the and that I think
explains
the form there a little more precisely
I also - it's hard to see in the light that we have
but there's actually a plane that goes from
this point right here to the
.corner there. The angle of the jaw
So I'm just going to
use my needles, I'm going to come up to
our model and see where
it is. It's not exactly to the corner, it's actually a little bit
along the line of the jaw, it's a little closer. I'm just gonna take that
angle and see what it is and then move it over.
And then I transfer it - yes.
Okay so this is - this is the angle. It's a little closer,
it's not exactly to the edge. And that angle
does seem correct but now I just want to make sure
of that line. How long is that line.
And so I can put the point
of my needle to the end of it, my hand to
that point along the cheekbone and -
except on the actual head. And then I'll transfer it and see if it lines up with anything.
So from the base of the nose,
the length of the nose. So from the length of the nose it seems
quite perfectly aligned. That should be
from this point to this point that should be
how long that line is.
I think we're alright. I think we're alright. Okay.
So now
we move on to the next step of our
process as we have practiced it. let's
move on to shadows. So let's start with the most
obvious shadow that we have.
(drawing)
So here is
our terminator, we as with our
prisms and
the cube, the terminator here will fall
very cleanly onto -
will fall very cleanly onto a sharp edge,
a sharp change in plane, a sharp form.
Just gonna go over and make sure it's
we have that -
we have it accented.
(drawing)
We also - the one thing that we do need to
speak about here that we will encounter
is cast shadows. Up until this
point we've only encountered a cast -
the cast shadow when we were able -
when we were able
to see it being cast from an object onto
the plane of our table or, as in the case with our
still life,
there was a cast shadow cast from the group of objects onto the
nonagonal prism on the left. Here
we're not so concerned with the cast shadow
on the table, we're more concerned with the cast
shadows from parts of the our head being
cast onto other parts of our head.
So we aren't really encountering this right here
but we are going to encounter this when we get into the eye
and the nose.
We have a little bit of a cast -
we have the cast shadow from the head onto the neck here.
And then this is the core
shadow
from the larynx and then
the cast shadow onto the neck.
And then, once again,
here. But as I said we're not gonna really spend too much
time on the neck just yet.
Okay so I've placed
the lines - I see the only place that we really
see a softer terminator is up here because
the plane that we have up top - I'm actually
I now see the need for maybe making the correction. I think that
this plane could - maybe it's flatter.
It feels off to me so, you know, I make
the necessary adjustments. So
from here to here
if we cut this in half, that's the size. Oh, it's right.
It's okay, well I guess it
was correct after all. There are times
though, I wouldn't play around with this right now but there are times
when you take a proportional
measurement or angle and everything is
the way it should be, it seems, but still looks wrong.
And I think we're going to encounter that a bit more
when we're working from a model, a human
model. A portrait or
a nude. And that's something
that we will have to spend some time on,
like where are we allowed to
kind of
go
against what's in front of us?
Okay, so here we have a softer - and see here
I'm using the technique, I'm showing you. I don't wanna place that
terminator because this is not a flat plane,
it has a curve so this plane begins to curve
away a little bit. It has -
so in essence
we could cut this plane up into
two planes, however
we're just going to go with what we actually
have. So this is a plane that's curved. As you see, instead of
placing the terminator as a line, I'm just going to hatch it in to show
that softer quality of that
of the form there. And then I'm just gonna
start to place a shadow there, simply to keep there so that I
know where it is.
So before we move onto some of the smaller shadows
I think
we can actually
begin to
tone away a little bit off of that main terminator
line that is separating the front plane of the face from the side.
(drawing)
And so, in a head, we actually have larger -
we have a - we have to think a
little bit harder about the amount of information
that we're going to want to -
the amount of variation that we want to have in our
shadows. And the reason for this is the
important elements here are all in the front.
So if everything is completed to an equal
degree then there's actually - then you're sort of creating
confusion on the page, you aren't
establishing
sort of your important accents and
telling
a viewer
what they should be examining first.
So some of
the tonal variations that you
are going to sort of
almost want to put in within the area
that is in shadow, so if we're going from this plane to that plane
to the ear, we're actually going to simplify
and sort of exaggerate the
variations that we see in the light.
But I think we'll get there. ...
(drawing)
So just replacing
a flatter tone. if you begin to lose -
so of the lines of your
planes, just go back and place them into the shadows
and go all the way to
(drawing)
the plane to the underside
of head.
(drawing)
Now we're gonna talk
about this when we arrive at this point but
you can see that the plane on the underside of
the mandible
is like the one underneath the head is
on our model, a darker value than the side plane. We're
not going to show it this way because this is one of the
main areas of a reflected -
of our reflected light and so we actually want to
show that happening. So this would be our core shadow,
this'll be our reflected light, and this'll be the cast shadow.
And so - and that is what's happening, it just so happens
that there isn't as much - there isn't enough light
reflecting back into that plane and I think we need it
so we're just going to
base it off of our understanding of shadows, opposed to our
observation. So
let's just take it all the way to the back
and we're also, you know, the same principle applies to
the back of the head.
Like, we are kind of inventing
the ambient light in the room
for the purposes of
showing the form in the best way possible.
(drawing)
Okay,
so now let's -
so if you see along our central line
the left side of the upper
lip is in shadow.
(drawing)
And the right side
isn't. So we're just going to take that
shadow - remember that our shadows have to be consistent and we're going to just
move it into there. Now, here's where a certain
things get a little bit difficult. You can see that this plane right here, you might
be tempted to put it into shadow but it's actually
a half tone that's just very -
that's just extremely dark. So we're going to leave
it the white of the paper until we get to our half tones
and move on, as we see here, to the plane that's underneath
the lower lid.
(drawing)
Alright.
Let's move on to what else
is clear. So
here you see a little bit of light, which is
helpful because -
and yeah if you have -
I'm the -
I spoke about it earlier but it's important to have an idea of what the head looks like
from multiple angles. So this all right here is one
plane. And there's a change of plane as we get here to
the wing of the nostril and
because it's turning sort of out and towards our light
source, it's catching light. So
it's important to leave that for now as the white of the page.
This right here
is a plane on the side of the nose that it entirely
in shadow. And here we actually
are beginning - we're going to encounter one of our
like most obviously cast shadows.
Just gonna clean this up. It's gonna remain
completely white for now. And you can see the
cast shadow from the side of the nose, from this plane, onto
(drawing)
what
is actually also part of the upper
the upper lip. On that area in between the
base of the nose
and the top of the lip itself.
Now here we're going to do a similar thing that we spoke about here
because of -
and I think this is a good exercise in
kind of applying your understanding of shadows
to what you see. But this whole area
on the head in front of us is
a darker value than
the planes above it.
But we want to invert that slightly in order
to make sure that this is reflected
light and is locked in by our core shadow
and cast shadow. As we have been doing up to this point.
(drawing)
So this
concept that we have been talking about, this kind of, sort of,
observational construction
where you're paying close attention to what's
in front of you, but then apply, almost immediately,
your understanding of principles of
light and shadow as well as the
sort of
construction of forms in space.
(drawing)
Okay. here
I'm going to
leave this part for a moment and
move into the
brow ridge.
And here we're going to have to get really specific because
you have the terminator,
the place where that
the form begins to turn away from the light
and then you have a cast shadow
that falls on the plane right here and then on
the corner of the eye. So almost follow along with your cast
shadow. And this is
the same principle that we covered when we saw that cast shadow on the
nonagonal prism from the group of objects.
And you can see the way the -
the way that the cast - sort of the pattern that the cast -
of the cast shadow on
the prism.
It outlined part
of the form.
Here we cannot see this from my angle.
Bring it back down.
And then that cast shadow continues so the outline of the cast
shadow here is particularly important because it's allowing us to
describe a form
using only the cast shadow.
So what we have after this
is we do have a little sort of area of light
that is just catching a little bit of light but everything else
is
in shadow. The only thing we need to do here is differentiate between
our core shadows,
with reflected light included of course, and our cast shadows.
So the first thing we're going to do is just get an even tone
over this so that I know it's all shadow.
And I'm keeping a little bit of light
triangular area.
(drawing)
And now I'm going to differentiate and, once again,
it's the same principle but I'm actually going to slightly get a
darker value on our cast shadow.
(drawing)
Terminator line and use this area right here
as reflected light. So there's
certain amount of analysis that has to come
into play here. It's all in front of you but the values aren't
exactly - you're not going to take them
exactly as you see them and transfer them onto your page.
You have to understand what the values are,
what they're describing, and then
apply them in any way that you -
that you
feel helps you describes the form. Here we have a
of course this plane of shadow but there's this tiny
line of cast shadow, we're gonna use that. Here
we have our terminator on the eye so
let's use it. Terminator. Or
core shadow and you can see where this eye actually ends
because if you were to go simply with the pattern of the
shadows you would see a shape
but now that we know that the eye ends right here and there's
a little bit of shadow that continues after it, we know that the
shadow on the object, this core shadow,
and the shadow
off of the corner of the eye essentially, is cast shadow.
So make the distinctions accordingly.
Your terminator's accented, then your core shadow
is slightly lighter value, your reflected light is an even lighter value and then your cast shadow
comes in with a dark value on the other side
of the terminator of the reflected light.
Well yeah, on the other side of the terminator.
(drawing)
Okay so something is beginning to happen.
I think things
are a little clearer now on the page. I think
though this angle - and see and if I notice that something is off, an angle
is wrong, I just go back in and we make all the
corrections. And I know that I talk about -
I know that I talk about, you know, completing
a step before moving on
to the next one but you - at a certain
point you do just have to
move on. And a lot of times you need to move on
before you can see the mistakes that you made in one of the previous steps.
So take your time
but don't take too much of your time.
Always keep moving.
I wanna go and get into the eye -
the eyelid on the other side just a little bit more.
We have it. And
so some of these contrasts are now
appearing. We have a few more of them,
a little bit and that's good, we want
these contrasts up close.
(drawing)
We want to accentuate our terminators where we have them.
(drawing)
See and
here I'm more concerned
with the overall, sort of
overall tonality at the beginning of our shadow at the
terminator into the core than I am at this point
at the, like,
specific variations between all the planes and the shadow.
I'm interested here in keeping the shadows a little flatter.
Though of course we're gonna go into them.
(drawing)
Okay, so now I'm gonna - the ear is an important element so
we might as spend some time and really
see what these planes are
and see some variations.
(drawing)
But the important thing here is I wouldn't
erase anything here. The tone that we sort of
began with and we placed a tone for the entirety of the shadow,
is - you need to keep it and
work around it. Because you don't wanna
have anything in those shadows that will compete with your
half tones.
(drawing)
And here I'm not so much - like, you want to show
the planes, but you don't really want to
color them in in a sense. You don't want to just evenly -
I'm actually more interested in the
plane changes than I am the
full tone of the plane itself, top to bottom.
And see it gives
us a large amount of information.
(drawing)
And here is
especially a place that, for the same
reason that we're not making this plane or that plane
or this plane extremely
dark, we want to show that there's
ambient light that falls into those planes, we're also
not going to really get this plane and these planes in the
back of the neck as dark as we see them either. But we do want that
edge. You always want the edge of the plane,
the edge of the terminator, the edge of the half tones
and you can see that if that's in place
it's not that
important what's in between those areas.
(drawing)
It is but not as important.
(drawing)
Okay so here we are up here
just want to make
sure that we had a clear read on this terminator as it goes across the entire
head. This is easy to see here but
this is something particularly important when we will
encounter hair
on human models.
You always want to see that
you're thinking of the whole head at all times.
And here I've lost that plane a little bit, the one
for the sort of, the top part of the
back of the head.
As I said, we're not gonna get into the technical terms yet
we're just applying
what we've learned
from the fundamentals course.
(drawing)
Okay so let's keep working on our
shadows a little bit longer and make sure
that they really read. You
almost want your drawing to
look completed with
only your shadows. Even before you start
any of the half tones. There has to be a feeling of completion.
(drawing)
So I'm skeptical because
I think we're gonna have
issues once we get to our half tones
it's gonna be hard to
get a half tone that's as dark as we need it
but that still remains a lighter value
than that reflected light right there.
And here
along the terminator I'm gonna add just a little more of a hatch
to kind of - to give this whole area a little bit
more emphasis.
We'll be talking about it a lot more when we
are talking about anatomy and accentuating
anatomy but it's important to
understand that the hatch that you've been practicing is
not only a way
to give you
the structure of the forms
that you need but it's also a way
to attract the viewers attention.
(drawing)
And here I'm actually hatching across some of those
planes
because I want to show them as planes and they are
very clearly
delineated in our planes of the
head model but
I don't want them to read as too sharp
within our shadow shape.
(drawing)
And keep in mind you can always go into them
again and get a sharper line in whenever you need it.
Here I do want a little bit of an accent because we do want - like even if it's not really there
you want to bring attention to the ear, it's an important element.
(drawing)
And here we're gonna go back in and get a little bit -
we're gonna put a little more tone
on this plane of the core shadow
and a little bit more on our
cast shadow. We're not going to really work into the reflected light just yet.
And here of course
there are variations between all these planes but
simplifying them a little bit, especially on the neck because we don't want
the viewer's attention to go there.
So I hope that you're beginning
to see the way that we're applying
our understanding
to control -
essentially control the
attention of the viewer, of the spectator.
(drawing)
Where are we now? Oh good, let's get
this a little bit more on these as we get closer to
the face. I'm
okay with the way this is at the moment.
This right here will also get a little - we can tone it down
just a little bit more. And I know that we'll probably
have to - see and right now these two things
are a little too close. This is reflected light but it can't be that strong.
And so
all these things
kind of apply to what I was talking about when I said
occlusion shadows, those areas that aren't catching a large amount of
the ambient light in the room
are to some degree optional. And you'll learn
that actually cast shadows are also, to some degree,
optional. But a terminator line isn't ever.
The terminator line has to be in place at all times.
(drawing)
It's one of the more important
one of the more important elements that you have to work
with when
talking about - when exaggerating and
accentuating the form.
(drawing)
Okay.
So
I just wanna tone this down. I'm not so sure
we're gonna go back into this area. We probably will have to once we have our half tones
to establish
that overall area
that's in shadow and keep it consistent, but at the same time
as I said before, we don't really want to accent
a lot of what's happening
on that side of the head because we want our attention to go to the face.
So before we move on
to our half tones
and then back into our shadows
again, just want to go over some of
the - just want to go over some of the
go over some of these - these smaller
shadows on the features of the face and make
sure we have placed all of our
accents.
(drawing)
We have the proper value
(drawing)
when we need it.
So here, you might ask yourself but where it the
cast shadow, is this is a place that's all in shadow
it means that plane is in core shadow, the plane
itself is catching
reflected light but the cast shadow
on a form like this will probably just
be - will appear as a line right underneath it.
We're going to do the same thing with the lips.
Just
that line underneath
will act as
act as a
convincing cast shadow. Now I'm going to
slightly change the proportions
of the chin because I think it's a little large.
A little large.
(drawing)
So even now
that we have our shadows we can easily go in and make
adjustments. Actually you kind of just have to -
so just a little bit more in this, a lot
with the back of the head here, you don't wanna
accentuate the eye that's on the other side
of the head.
(drawing)
And I do want to get
a clear line, just see what
these things are. A clear line
to the end of the side plane of
the nose. Or rather then end of the front plane
and that edge between the front plane and the side plane.
(drawing)
Okay. So
now that we have our shadows, let's move on to the half tones.

So now that we've completed the second part
of this process, the shadows,
let's move on to the half tones.
Alright.
Let's begin, as we have,
with the darkest half tones. However,
before we get into that, let's see if there's anything that
we overlooked. And I think
that I could make a slight
indent here into this line because it's actually -
there's a plane that comes off here.
Now you can hardly see it
but if we do have a plane,
especially in the light, or particularly in the light,
then we want it on our page.
And then
it actually - so let's see if that's the angle.
Seems about right. And then
it continues into here, into here but it's so slight
that we're gonna have to - like, it's so slight
it hardly appears on the contour of the other side.
But I'm just gonna
put that line in and we'll see
if we feel like using it. I think we should.
We might need to exaggerate the
tonal differences between these two,
between these two planes. Okay.
So let's begin with the darkest half tones that we have.
I see the tones here are -
that's probably the plane of the
darkest half tones. I see this is
a dark half tone plane, this side plane of the forehead is a dark half tone plane,
this plane right here is also a
dark half tone plane. The chin
and a couple of the planes
in the eye socket and eye.
So that's where
we begin. Here we have this interesting situation happening
again, a lot like with our plane up here, there is
a little bit of a curvature here because you see how
the half tone here sort of begins to get darker
and darker as it approaches
this intersection.
(drawing)
So that's where we begin from
darkest, darkest half tones. And we just begin to pull it out
of there, accounting for the curvature
(drawing)
I'm actually seeing that there might be a correction that needs to be made here.
I would tilt this plane a little more
Huh. Okay.
And see, as you
move on to the next step, a lot of times these things that you
overlooked jump out at you. And so, then
go back to the previous step and make your corrections and then move on.
As well as the plane here before hand. So
yeah, so there's something with like these contours, these angles
that I'm not entirely happy with.
So that's what we're going to -
we're gonna tilt that page a little further back.
And I'm interested in making this
precise as possible. This is a very important part of the head so I'm gonna use the needles to get
the real exact angle.
I'm gonna go to
that line, then this line, and then the
outer edge. So this -
huh, that's interesting. So if we turn - okay.
Let's see where we have it there.
So yeah. This plane is actually
seems to taper slightly, which would
pull it further back from this
point that I just erased. I would like to drop a vertical and
see where it lands. It seems to hit
right here. So if I were to -
so we're making some serious corrections, some
serious readjustments.
(drawing)
And this will of course affect our center line.
But that tilt - I'm a lot more happy with that
tilt now. And of course this will
then affect our outer
edge of our contours.
(drawing)
I'm liking that much more
now. I'm just going to go from this point
to this point, I just want to double
check here. I'm using my pencil as a constant.
(checking)
And I think
we can actually bring down this plane. So
I keep mentioning
one adjustment will always
be followed by others.
(drawing)
So you see here
we didn't spend too much time on the portions of the head
or any of this. I think if you just
to go from angle to angle, ask yourself the right
questions, ask yourself about, sort of
just kind of
what is appearing
incorrect at a given moment in time
and make the corrections as you go, you will
inevitably arrive at
your proper proportional measurements. Okay. So that's a change
that I made
and I don't know if there are any others but we'll
find them. And then I'm gonna go and continue with
this plane of the half tone.
(drawing)
Going to take that.
Got - somewhat accounting
for its curvature. And remember that's -
(drawing)
that is a plane of
(drawing)
a darker half tone.
And then we might have to go back. And here
I'm treating this not so much as an edge but as a little bit of a
sort of softer terminator. This edge. Because
it'll imply
a roundness that's quite
convincing.
(drawing)
Then you can go back and even
make adjustments to the outer edges
of your planes. Okay.
So now, you can see, we're still
okay in terms of the tone of our half tones
and our reflected
lights. There are certain places where there's confusion
but I think, for the most part, this plane is reading like
light, as opposed to everything else that's currently still
reading like shadow. But we might - from experience,
both mine and yours
we know that
we'll have to address things again.
So here there is
also a curvature. So we're going to -
we're going to
try to get that. So the plane is - so these
half tones are going to be a darker value here and then they get a little bit lighter
as we get to
that intersection
because it's - you can see that this areas just slightly
lighter than this plane. But only slightly.
(drawing)
Then we're gonna go back over
our terminator. It's a soft terminator because of the
soft -
because the form is turning away from the light very
gradually.
(drawing)
So at
least within the plane itself, we need to make sure,
at least for now, we need to make sure that our -
that we have a clear distinction between our half tones and our
reflected lights.
(drawings)
Okay. Let's
keep going.
(drawing)
Gonna go back into this plane. I want to make sure the
relationships in this area are
right, or as close to right as I will be able to perceive
at the given moment, as possible.
And then we did decide
to break this up a little bit.
And there is a little bit of that curvature, you could see that this whole part,
this part before the change in plane is a little bit lighter than everything
above it.
So we're gonna keep it.
And then the part slightly underneath it
is a little bit darker.
(drawing)
And then we pull out from it
So we're establishing a few planes, but we're also
concerned with the slight curvatures and not
all the particulars of them
but especially in this case, just enough to
differentiate between those two planes without
having a clear line there. And now
I feel like we can just go back into that terminator and make
sure it reads like a shadow. And you see -
and so I'm going to just soften it a little bit.
(drawing)
Just accent
the intersections of the planes.
So this is gonna get
this shadow as dark
as we need it.
Just gonna extend that core shadow
out and then
this whole area is now really reading a little too light.
So see? it didn't take any time at all for me to
go back and readjust some of our shadows.
(drawing)
Go back into the ear a little bit and just - I
like the ear is going to be the toughest thing because it's gonna need
like the ear is going to be the toughest thing because it's gonna need
specifics, is gonna need tonal
variation but - so I'm gonna just
kind of put a tone over the whole thing a little bit so that
I preserve the relationships but I just -
I push the whole thing into the shadows. And of course you even it out
a little bit when you work this way
go back into it but now it's clearly in the side plane, clearly in shadow. We don't want
the ear - that's one of the hardest elements
to control
is sort of the placement of an important element within a shadow shape.
Okay so - but I think
we're getting somewhere. So
we do have the front plane of the forehead here, it's catching a lot of light.
It's one of the brightest planes. And the front plane
of the nose, also catching a large amount of light. We're gonna clean up some
of these construction lines. And I
think we might have to go ahead and try and keep it as white as
the page. We might.
Clean up that line, there's a strange curvature, we need a clear separation
of the planes and
we do have those highlights in between planes. So there's a lot
happening here so we're not gonna get into them right away and then we're going to
do them with the eraser. So let's start on this
plane. This is a tough one because it needs to be a
dark enough plane and I think - so here's where
you run into problems
as I have here. So this relationship is good.
I think the white of the paper here
to this plane, to the front plane of the nose is a good
tonal - has a good tonal relationship. But now these two planes are the same.
And there's definitely not the same from where
I'm looking here. So we're gonna need to push
this down. And of course, as you can already anticipate,
we're gonna have to go back and that shadow to work
in relation to this new tone. But see here I'm also - I'm
kind of preserving some of the things that we did with the curvature
and the slight differentiation between this plane
right here and the one above it.
But I'm sort of placing a tone over the whole thing.
Then I'm doing a little bit of the same thing up here.
Just to get it all into one
thing. So I see there's
already a little more of a structure happening, a little more of a -
there's more form. The idea that everything
that you add has to give you
more volume, more form
and if you're going the other way you have to have a - if you're sort of simplifying things
and flattening them, you have to have a reason for it. And there are plenty,
we'll get to them.
So here
I really want to show that they eye is actually ending
you can see it, right in there. So the way we would
show that is to make sure the cast shadow, falling on the eye,
is clearly a darker value.
(drawing)
Okay.
I'm okay with these relationships.
And see, I know I keep repeating that but the reason
for that is that as I'm working I'm always
asking myself questions. Like,
I'm asking myself are -
and the more that I add,
the more questions I have and
the more components are introduced
and have to be compared.
Where are we here? Okay.
(drawing)
So that line is now really
functioning. You kind of want to make sure - like even
if you have confusion between your half tones
and your reflected lights you want to still
make sure that we really have a tone along the terminator,
a value there that will make it clear
this is half tone and that is the beginning of your shadow.
Okay so
here we have a lighter area,
it's a half tone but it's extremely dark and because of the
curvature, parts of it are in shadow so this'll be a little bit more
complicated, we have to really get in there. Here is where
you might want a pencil that's a little bit sharper. I'm okay with mine
and as you see it's not extremely
sharp.
(drawing)
Now this is shadow. I kind of
kept these - I didn't place these shadows earlier because I wanted to keep
those planes clear and now
I'm going into
dark, dark half tone.
Where are we now? Okay let's see.
(drawing)
Let's get back into this.
(drawing)
Just wanna clean this up
to get a nice clean edge there that we can work into it.
Modify it if we need to. Make sure we get
some lines there, some edges.
(drawing)
And so - and now
a similar thing, we just need to get these shadows
really looking like shadows. They just need more,
they just need to be darker really.
Let's see. And here we have...
(drawing)
I'm just get into this
that little cast shadow, that's
describing the form so well. And then if you remember
that this was light and this was light, as in
it's half tone in the area of lights but those half tones are actually quite dark. Now the thing
is, when you have a small half tone
you - there's a chance you
might perceive it as lighter than it actually is because it's surrounded
by shadows. So - and
for this you just need to step away a little bit, squint your eyes
and just really see. And if I squint my eyes I hardly see those
half tones, which means the values here are going to be
really, really close. But we still need to make sure that
we have that distinction between
our shadows and our lights. So we're just gonna start by
getting a tone on that plane of
of the nostril and then here -
here I even want a sharp edge on the
nose there on the part that
in a human being would be cartilage.
Get that in there and then here
too.
Just get it - and see it's almost lost
so in order to pick it back up again we just need to get these
shadows a little bit darker.
And I think the nose, now that we have
a lot of times - a reason also why I hesitate
to worry too much about proportions straight away is because
when you're working in line, it's very hard to see
proportions as they
are
and when you're working in line it's very hard to see proportions as they
are
on an object in front of you that is in a situation of light.
So a lot of times there are
things that are happening with proportions that are
there are issues there that only can be really perceived
once you have the shadows.
Once you have even some of the half tones.
Some of these things
will only then become obvious.
(drawing)
And I want that origin, that
beginning of that cast shadow to be sharper
and darker.
This shape, this line.
Gonna push that line in a little bit
and here right now I'm just going to
make some of these clear. The shadow actually has given me an idea.
I'm just gonna take this line, I wanna see where it is. So from
that line to this line I think you can line them up.
And I can't here, which means
that I'm actually going to move the eye over
a little bit and push this
point out a little bit so that I can line them up because I think
if we line them up they do - there's a line that you can take from
that point to this point to that point from my angle.
This isn't some line that is always -
there's always constant - but the eye definitely needs to get larger.
And we'll make it larger, see?
Now you see what I mean when
I almost think the eraser's the more important tool.
And only -
I think the eraser's the more important tool and only sometimes
is it used for correction.
Most
of the time it's used to get the same
effect.
Okay, okay, okay.
I like how that eye reads more. It's taking up a little more
room in the socket now.
(drawing)
A little more room in the socket.
And then
because of this I actually think we can slightly expand on our shadow.
(drawing)
So I'm kind of just moving the eye, I'm enlarging the eye
and moving it a little bit closer to the nose here.
And you might - so I
hope that watching me can
give you an idea of this approach. This approach
requires constant modifications of everything
that you already have on the page.
So of course for now
there is a guideline, we start off with
the constructions and to some degree
our proportions and then we
place our shadows and
then we move into the half tones but you can
see how even when everything -
when the steps are so clear
they're not
that clear.
You're always
sort of moving ahead before you've completed a step and then you're
pulling back to one of the
previous - one of the previous
steps when you
need to.
Okay, okay, okay. So we've made some
correction, kind of went back to
in order to move this side we went back to step one and now let's continue
with half tones. I'm gonna just work with the eye here, there's a very clear
plane on this plane
or construction of an eye, there's this -
I think
it can be a little bit - it's a darker value than this plane.
It angles that way and
every plane up here is angled upwards, this one's angled downwards.
(drawing)
And then the plane
that's turning away from us is lighter but
not as light as this top plane.
(drawing)
And then we use the eraser to really get a clear
shape to the top plane
and
I should pull it out a little bit more with the...
Then there's another plane that we can hardly see that comes up as a
edge. So my eraser's actually
is getting - it's lost its sharp edge so when you get to that
point, you just
cut a little more off to keep it sharp. You wanna keep it
as sharp as your erasers.
And then, using that sharp point, I'm just gonna get in there.
(drawing)
They actually have
erasers that
are like a retractable mechanical pencil except
instead of the
graphite, you get this
eraser that comes out. And I have used them but I
think that this way of cutting the
eraser will actually will get you exactly
the same effect. And you're holding it a bit
closer so you might even have a little more control.
Okay so I'm not gonna
overanalyze this right now. I think it's close to what we need.
I'm gonna start with these planes of the socket.
Just gonna go and, you know, as you're
working on one, keep your eye on the other almost.
And this one's a little
light. All of these planes are
turned upwards so they're catching a lot of light.
This plane right here is actually
catching a lot of light but I think it's - I don't think we could
really keep it the white of the paper, we're going to have to tone it down a little bit.
So we have these two planes that are very light and then this one right here is gonna
be just slightly darker.
But we'll get there. Now I'm just gonna -
I want to reinforce this terminator and pull it out a little bit, maybe even
the same way as before, just a little bit softer.
Just can get a little too sharp
when
you have such a clear separation, such a clear line.
(drawing)
And see
as I move along I see
a line, I see an edge
I question it and it's almost intuitive. You just
take a look and you're like well and then something catches your eye and you're like well
I should make sure that's right.
Just slightly.
(drawing)
And now we have this plane
in between the - it's this sort of side plane in between
the upper lip and the nose and you can see it,
it's got
tone right on it
that will really begin to show us that this form is curving in and this is pulling back out.
(drawing)
there is this plane that we mentioned before that - we were working up here so
we haven't gotten to but that is one of the darkest half tones. I mentioned it
when we were just placing our shadows because I was
thinking that
you might have thought that it was a shadow you might just feel like maybe you wanna make that shadow
but it's not, it's a half tone. But it's a
very dark half tone so we're gonna have to work around it,
we're gonna have to really
get these areas around it dark enough.
(drawing)
Just gotta clean that up
a little bit. Just can't avoid it.
Or maybe you can.
I can't avoid it. I'm gonna move up
right here right away just to get this
plane right here, just to get that plane
working. So I think we're getting there. This plane is one of our front
planes, it's turning upwards a little bit and this is important, it's gonna be catching
a lot of light. This angle of this contour
of the lip. You just wanna see it.
Just wanna see it. It's tilting a certain way that I don't think -
but tilts
slightly differently because that form is complex, it has a turn to it. So
just have to make sure to be at the proper angle to make that
correction.
And then we move from there
sweep that in a little bit more I think.
Here we are making corrections again.
Just get that
down there.
Move that back up.
and then
you can see a little bit of
the other side of this part of the cheek on the other
side. It's light, you don't wanna
overaccentuate it. But hmm, yeah.
This is taking concentration and a lot of it.
Now let's get to this plane that's turned away.
This plane of the chin. The front plane
of the chin.
And
this little plane that's turning away.
Okay so
I think we're getting closer, I think we're getting closer.
I'm gonna just step away and take a look.
Yeah, I still think
there's more to do in terms of just
distinguishing between the half tones, I'm not even talking about
any kind of proper integration.
Alright so, I am looking at this plane
on top that we haven't addressed yet. And we really need to
get a clear structure because, if you think about it,
the structure of the cranium
up here is the closest -
the sort of larger structure
that is very close to the ones that we have been working on.
So we just gotta get that plane in place.
And it's receding, it is
a darker value than this front plane.
But a lighter one than
this plane already on the side here
(drawing)
and so
just gonna clear a line, keep
stepping away or leaning back as far as you can to get
the clearest view
and clean those lines up a little bit.
The important thing is to make a confident
line. You can see that if you make a confident
mark, even if it's not as accurate as
maybe it can be, it will
look a lot
more correct than if it's hesitant, you know it's like
if you say something confidently then it doesn't have to be correct
for people to think you know what you're talking about.
I don't recommend that though. I recommend you know what you're talking about.
So
just gonna go
and get back into
these forms just to turn the head. So there's
an element here that's, like you're thinking
like
a sculptor. You're aware that
when you add a half tone
or accurately place a
terminator, you're actually making - you're changing the appearance of the
form on the page.
So I think it's time - and then -
to do something about that plane right there.
It's currently as light as the page.
These two are a little bit close, these two are a little bit close so -
and we still want to show this edge, not so much with a line,
with a highlight so we just need a little bit
of value on it. So I'm just gonna kinda go ahead
and get these values in there.
(drawing)
Get these values in there.
Okay. So kind of integrate them with the page
a little bit. And
now it's time
to push these values again. In terms of this angle
I think this was okay. It caught my eye for a second, I wasn't sure
but I did a quick check and I
think it'll work. So
we're just gonna
kinda integrate some of these tones
to the paper. And now clearly we need to get
the rest of these planes
a few values darker.
(drawing)
You can see that as you're working on all these and just
going back and making adjustments
this is all constant practice that
improves your observational
skills.
(drawing)
So I think we're getting a little bit closer to what I'm looking for so
I'm gonna use the sharp edge of my eraser to get
that highlight.
And I'm gonna get the
highlight between these two planes as well.
And then I'm going to
work around them to really
(drawing)
make sure that highlight stands out. You can erase it but you can use a highlight
as a value but then you use to establish the tone
around that highlight. So a lot like we kind of extend
out from the terminator,
sort of basing our relationships on the
value of the terminator, you're doing a similar thing here.
Where you have your highlight,
we keep it as light as the paper and then
you find this just slightly darker
half tones that will be dark enough for your highlights
to stand out.
(drawing)
Just gonna -
I think if we really are able to
get everything we need up here
I think
we could quickly adjust all
the rest of the parts of the face.
And I still just kinda just hatch along that line.
Just kind of - I'm
softening it and darkening it at the same time. But then
this eye,
the sort of the general plane
of the eye you can see here. So the fact that you can see the
eyelids and the specifics, don't let that -
that's kinda the point of having
that simplified construction on this side.
This is all you really need to think about when you're working on an eye.
And you see that it - all of
the sort of simplified parts are in place
you see that all of
those specific little details of the
eye, eyelid, iris, the pupil, even
highlights that you can see in the eye will all just
fall into place if you have the major forms.
(drawing)
And then, a lot like the plane here, this plane
is gonna be a half tone because it's
not turning upwards, like the planes up here, but downwards.
(drawing)
And then the
eyeball itself, we're gonna have
a little bit more light of course on the upper lid that's turning upwards and
then of course on this
little bit of the lower lid.
And for the most part
you're just -
you're placing it in the
general tonality of
the eye socket.
Okay, so just to quickly jump to
this plane because it's also
turned away from our light so we need to get
that in place. And then once you're
here
I feel like we can get into some of this a little more.
We can get a really clear edge to give us the form
and a really clear edge
of the plane
that's in shadow.
And step back
think about it, analyze it, and let's get back to it.
Now in a

So the plane here is completely flat, there aren't any -
there aren't any changes in its
movement. So that means that it's going to be pretty
much one value.
And I'm just thinking
maybe we just put a little bit of a tone on it
as light as you can just to give a little bit more room,
a little more tonal room
for the
highlight that's down here. And I have to come up
close to really
place it
and then, as we did with the forehead, I'm just going to just pull
up from it just a little bit so that we have it.
Okay so, these two tones though
they are different and we purposefully
brought this one up, we need to -
we need to get it dark enough.
Then we need to get that origin of the cast shadow. So we're going
back into our shadows now a little bit
to place some accents and then here
I just wanna
get a little more precise with the
shape. In a sense
just the observed, two dimensional
shape of that area of the nose.
(drawing)
And to push that all into shadow here.
Also here I'm just gonna - that is a plane change but
it's soft. It's not like a
sharp indent. It's sharp enough and it's sharper than it is on any
human form but there's -
it's not like a sharp,
sharp edge, so I feel it could use a little
bit of softening, kinda just hatch along that edge.
And then what we'll -
what that will add
is it gives us a little bit of a gradation
on this plane here.
Making some corrections and let's get this
into a...
Get that away and
then get this. And now this is a very important
element. Just gonna hatch along this edge.
If we get a little softer that's not a problem. And also
kind of slightly softening them is a way
to prepare
for when we finally start working on a
human head in which all of these
planes have to be
obvious on your - you kind of have to exaggerate them but at the same time you
they still have to be organic and soft.
(drawing)
And then
just pull that away softly.
Oops.
Even some stuff out.
And we keep going.
And as you see,
we are beginning -
(drawing)
we're beginning
to really emphasize
this line. And we've been emphasizing it from the
moment we started to place our shadows
but, as you well know, it gets lost
once the half tones come in.
So that's also an important
element here. So you kind of start off by establishing this
hierarchy of important elements.
And the idea is that
you want to keep coming back in
and reestablishing that hierarchy as you add other
elements. So as soon
as I add a tone here for example, I need to go here
because we know that that line has to be important.
And it has to be -
so like, as everything is coming
together, you
want to keep
that hierarchy
constant as much as you can. There are times when,
after some time you
come up with a new idea and when you think well I don't
(drawing)
like the initial hierarchy that I established and then
you change things. But
until then keep keep going in and reestablishing.
This is kind of a reason
why you can't resolve anything piece by piece.
You can only
resolve an area
at a given point in relation to
all the other areas.
(drawing)
So it's kind of a
kind of a balancing act.
(drawing)
Oh, accidentally erased a little bit of that.
No worries. Here the
values are getting a little bit confused.
And by that I probably mean that
I get confused when I look at them. So it's not the
values fault really, it's more my fault but...
(drawing)
And
I would go back in and make sure this reflected light
is the proper
value, so it's a much - but then go back in
and make sure your cast shadows, even though, I repeat, not what we see there,
(drawing)
even though
that's not what we see there,
you want to make sure it reads a certain way
according to the principles that we have been talking about
in this fundamentals course.
(drawing)
Okay. So I think we can
do a little bit on some of these
planes that are like really turning away, they're very small
but something needs to happen there. You can see this
right here. Something needs to happen there that will give you
the form.
And I'm thinking - I'm back to this line.
This line is annoying me. And I'm just gonna straighten it out so that these
two are converging a little bit more.
(drawing)
Alright.
So I'm gonna spend some time on the back of the head
now that we have the
front in place more or less.
The back got a little lost.
So just gonna get - this is an important line because that sort of signifies
the beginning of the turn from the end of the side
plane, so that's the beginning of the side plane all the way to there. And from that point the head begins to wrap
around.
It's happening - it happens
gradually.
(drawing)
But it is happening. And so
if you remember in the
still life that we did with our
geometric solids,
towards the end we were doing a little bit of work with
the way like the tone of the background
comes up against
what we have against the head or
in that case it was the objects.
And the interesting thing is that
in this approach you're thinking a little bit more in terms of
contrast and the
sort of the - you're comparing contrasts so
you're comparing a
comparison. And what I mean by that
is that you're not as concerned
with the value that you see in front of you and finding it on the page.
but you're concerned with a group of values that you see in front
of you and how you transpose them onto
the page. And believe it or not
you - the contrast here
you might be tempted to put
a dark background around the head there
but
you have to kind of imagine that you're
readjusting all the values that you see in front of you
in relation not so much to a toned
background around and behind the head
but to the, sort of, the tone -
the untouched tone of the paper.
In our case,
this kind of slightly off-white
and I will
show you what I mean by this. But that is why
I don't really want to push
the tones in the back of the head because then, to the white of the page
it'll create a contrast that'll be the opposite of what we actually have in life.
You don't really -
you can't really see too much
of a distinction between the back of the head and the
tone of the background over there.
And that's what we want here, while keeping the background white.
And we'll be talking a lot about
this concept. It's kind of a very important one
in the approach
that I'm showing you.
(drawing)
Alright, so we got some more
work done but what I also think will happen is that
once we sort of pull off the ear a little bit, we kind of
accentuate a few things there. You'll see
how this whole area
will come to life without too much
being added into it.
So let's get to the ear. We just need some contrast in there.
So
(drawing)
I'm working in all the planes that we
initially placed. I'm getting
this shape of the cast shadow, which is really
following the form here. It's falling on the
form and if a cast
shadow falls on the form in a way that's
really helpful in describing it
then you gotta include it.
(drawing)
So I'm hesitant
to pull this value up because I don't want it to conflict
with our -
with all of our
accents up here so I kinda just need to go the
other way. I need to
push everything darker.
(drawing)
And now I am
going to turn down behind the ear
a little bit, I think it'll help
but
not too much. Just enough for the ear to pop
out of there.
And I'm also - I don't want a lot of
hatch marks, I don't wanna have the viewer's
eye just to go to the back of the head just because of the -
because the handling of the medium is too
active or something like this.
(drawing)
Huh okay so the ear is
appearing and this - you really need to
differentiate between the side plane of the cheek here of the
sort of right up against the
mandible, the jaw,
and the ear. This is going that way. And the ear does come up
and catch a little bit of light.
So you use what you can.
(drawing)
I'll make some mark in
these places and maybe soften them a little bit.
(drawing)
Now I feel like we need
to step back, we need to take a look, we need to think and
we kind of have everything in place.
I would say this is where the head is.
Do a little bit more work on some of these parts of
the neck.
(drawing)
Kind of integrate some of these hatch marks, once again for the same reason we don't want
too much happening down there.
(drawing)
Just kind of
find where things are without
really -
without spending too much
time on them.
There are times
when you can get away with not spending
a lot of time on an area and it looks like you didn't spend
a lot of time and that's what you actually want
then there are other times
when you really have to spend tons
of time making it look like you completely ignored an area.
(drawing)
Backgrounds are like this especially
in painting.
(drawing)
And
here we can - I mean I
keep coming back to this. On the one hand I think there are things to
be not so much learned here,
because you already have practiced this, but to kind of
to work your way into seeing
some of -
take that across - into seeing some of
the forms we have here as
the structures that we were talking about in this course.
Like this part of the ellipse for example.
But
I'm not gonna take it all the way down to the page and I'm not gonna add
too much tone. Like it's a similar concept as up there.
It's just enough to kind of
show that there is something here, that
it's part of the head - it's not part of the head but it's part of our
model.
And - but it is not
what we need to focus on. Okay so here we are.
Now we're at a good place.
Just
slightly tone this away.
Yeah. I think
this is a perfect example of me spending more time than I intended
on a part that has to look as though I didn't spend any time at all.
So if you're looking at
some of my work and there are parts that
look ignored and easy, they might have taken
more time than any of the others.
They probably did.
(drawing)
But I guess you do anything
to get us a good composition.
And that's all of course part of composition where
you want to direct the viewers eye.
Huh. Okay, okay, okay.
I'm feeling alright about that. Okay so now that
we have
pretty much put in our half tones,
let's try to reestablish
that hierarchy of accents
and see - and probably
go back into some of the contours to try to
really make this a completed piece.
(drawing)
So I'll try to explain what's
happening here but a lot of it is just continuation of what
we've already talked about.
You're just going over some of the terminators, you're making sure they are
clear distinctions between
your cast shadow and your core shadow and
reflected light. In some cases
you might just be adding a little bit of
a - a little bit more
of a gradation within a plane
Sometimes it's just for flare.
A hatch somewhere, you know, because it looks cool.
I don't
really recommend playing around with that too much at this point
and kind of, for the most part, everything
that you do put on the page has to be considered but, you know,
you can have a good time with some of these effects sometimes.
This is all an effect isn't it?
Really get a clean...
(drawing)
And I want
to tone down some of these light
planes just enough
because I want to
really emphasize the strong
lights that we have up here.
(drawing)
Oh good. I don't think
I think we can push this a little bit more
and I think we can bring this plane of the
bridge of the nose - we can bring it up a little bit. I want
more of a distinction
between these planes along the front, along the
center line.
And a lot of times, towards the end, you might
just be going for a differentiation
along the edge
of a plane.
A lot of times that is just what's happening.
(drawing)
So in order to really establish
a little more completed, we're gonna put a little bit of a background into this.
So I'm gonna -
I like this, this is one of the strongest contrasts
between the head and the background, so
and we don't have any contrast because
of the white of the page. So I feel like we can use something.
(drawing)
Here I'm gonna use the eraser a little bit to kind of - this is the thing
with the backgrounds, you just have to keep moving them around until they
work integrating the tone into the paper
then kind of hatching back into it.
(drawing)
But I want that line a little bit sharper but
at the same time, I don't know if this - like you have to make
sure that this contrast, these values,
this combination of this contrast and the
individual values, not in relation to one another,
don't stand out more than our terminator
on this side. Otherwise
we won't be able to see that this is our closest edge and the head is
receding. So a lot of times
we look at some hatched academic
work and the backgrounds all hatched,
there's usually a tone that's placed
underneath the hatch in order to
minimize these strong contrasts between the hatch marks and the white of the
paper. See, you still have a hatch, it attracts a certain amount of
attention but it's not as
strong as that. And here I would...
(drawing)
And it slightly changed direction
then go back down, go up, go back down.
That's all we need up there. I wouldn't -
I'm not so sure I'm going to - this is
strangely the hardest part. You wouldn't think it.
You'd think all that - the planes and comparing
them and anatomy and all that is the hardest part. A lot of times
it's the atmosphere, it's the environment that you're
trying to create
that is the hardest part. So I think we can bring down this background a little bit
lower, I think we can bring it down to the nose
but I don't think we need to bring it down much
more than that. It's gonna have to haze out. And even here I don't think it needs to be
as dark.
See I'm rubbing it into the paper a little bit
and then I'm gonna go back over it because I
like the softness of
the graphite when it's
kind of pushed into the fiber of the paper.
I like the effect but there's something about
the texture that seems incomplete. So it requires
another pass or two or three.
(drawing)
Hmm. Alright, alright.
Okay so now we're gonna get a sharper
line up there
just to be sure that this is the closer edge, we're gonna
really push this now. Gonna really push these values.
Really push that terminator.
And we're really beginning to get some volume now.
This is a bright plane, that's good.
A little bit of a hatch on it.
Just get a little bit softer again.
I don't know if I'm - feel like I'm just repeating the same thing.
But I also think that that might be the most helpful
for you to see how there's almost - like
you start off with a certain
approach and this approach continues the entire
time. The same kind of analysis
just applied over and over and over again as you add
more information and make changes.
(drawing)
I think we need a little
bit more happening around the lips.
They seem underdeveloped. At least from a
tonal perspective.
(drawing)
So
we'll start by just adding a little bit of
contrast, a little bit more
and see in here I worked the other way. Because I darkened the shadows it meant that I could push
that half tone. I could really make that a darker
half tone. And still have it be a half tone.
So I'm not
only - so a lot of the time you don't only
tone down the shadows after you get a half tone in to make sure
that they're a darker value, you can do it in reverse.
You can push a shadow and see that now you have room to really
push that half tone.
(drawing)
Just need a little bit more now around here.
But I'm still gonna keep what we have right there.
And I wanna
kinda do something with this eye a little bit.
Maybe just - like maybe we just don't need it that much of a contrast.
like even if you get a light there and there is a shadow
sort of above the upper lid on
the, sort of, on the plane of
the eye socket up there
I don't think - it's over there, it has to connect with the
background. Right now we're focused more on just pulling out what's closest
to us.
But we have our values, we have our relationships
and as you see we're not really altering them that much. Right now it's just small
changes. The same approach but applied on a sort of
more - a smaller, more local scale.
(drawing)
Just kinda gotta go over
particular
lines there,
make sure these things - but see that there
that's maybe too much. It's that same thing
between that edge and that edge. The closer edge
needs to be emphasized.
And this is part of this idea when you're kind of
always - you're sort of exaggerating the form and you're
doing what you can
without the introduction of the sort of
the entire
tone of experience as your eye sees it.
(drawing)
And just a little bit more on that ear.
Just
to get this to work and to
connect with our features. And see, without bringing up
the values of that ear,
but
did notice a little bit of a mistake there. I think the, sort of the cast
shadow's a little smaller. So i'll fix it.
(drawing)
So if you
think of this process as a process of endless
correction, then
if you're also having the problem that you - is kind of
this problem of perfectionism that
you feel like everything just needs to be perfect before you move on
or every line needs to be correct and so on, this
approach might be perfect because it'll
allow you to just keep
at it. Because this approach
expects you to be wrong.
It also most needs you to make
to make
mistakes.
(drawing)
Because if you don't have them, you don't have anything to correct.
If you don't have anything to correct then you can't
move this along.
Right now I feel like the values we have on
this side of the head are
okay. They're sort of allowing us to see that there's a light hitting it from here.
But at the same time -
so the question is -
so the question is what do we do with
this side of the head. So one of -
one option is actually to just kind of erase it out so that it completely hazes out
into the background closer to what we have here. But we already have that there.
And the other option is closer to what we already had,
is to just put a tone that you can barely see
(drawing)
on the background
so that this relationships closer. Not so
much of a contrast.
I haven't commented on it but you've probably seen me
use my entire hand to
smooth stuff out and
smudge this all in. And I just
find it convenient and quicker. And it's especially important
and helpful, rather. You can manage without it of course but it's
especially important when
you're working on a larger
drawing with something like
charcoal or Conté
and you just need to cover large areas in order to
be able to evaluate them as fast as possible so
that you can continue seeing what needs to happen.
(drawing)
I'm using my kneaded eraser
here, I'm kind of even -
there are times you wanna maybe
step away and wash your hands
because -
and also, when you use
your whole hand to smudge,
that's the term I'll use after all, you see how much
easier it is to do that
when you have your paper
stretched on a panel.
It stays in place. It's super sturdy.
(drawing)
Alright.
So I'd like to take a moment to step away
before we
go into this with the intent of
completion. Alright.
I've taken a moment to step away because
completing something is one of the hardest -
is one of the hardest things to
do because you really wanna take your time, you wanna make a mark,
you wanna step back and think again, it's
completely something that takes the largest amount
of time
but the least amount of actual application.
It takes a long time to
really think about what needs to be added, how to
balance things and reestablish those
hierarchies, put in accents and
all of that is something that takes
a lot of time to think about.
And usually not a lot of time to actually execute.
So
when you feel like something is at the point where -
like it's almost completed, you feel
that you're close, it's time to maybe
turn it away, step away and
just think about what
needs to be added. There are plenty
of experiences that I've had where I was at that point,
on a painting for example, and I
knew that it was close, but then I would
turn away and sometimes I would come back
to the painting after a week, a month even
and turn around and see that it's actually - it's completed.
You have everything that you needed there. And other times
it's just obvious. Oh, that's off. And then you
just add it and you're done. So there are a few things
that are jumping out at me. Like I think that this line is a little too strong.
So we're gonna soften that a little bit.
You still want this edge but it's a little
too strong, kinda just need to -
and also, I can see this line
here but the planes here -
there is a clear separation but it
softer. So I think softening them
by hatching across them is
was a way to do it.
Kind of get these values together, a little closer to...
So a lot of times completion is also something that happens
after you - like if you spend a lot of time
working on individual
details, you realize that -
you realize
that
you need to go back
and just work all over. Integrate them.
And even at times
sort of just remove
some of the work that you've put into some of those -
some of those details because you see that they're sort of taking
a lot of attention. There's this sort of -
they're making everything about themselves
and you're losing the feeling of the whole.
(drawing)
Outer edges.
So
(drawing)
not too much. Might be getting a little bit
softer here.
(drawing)
And then accentuating some of these
edges, these corners, cleaning up
this reflected
light as...
(drawing)
And then here, just a little bit more
(drawing)
Just gonna take it all the way there.
Add a little bit of a
something there. Yeah, it's a hard -
completion is a hard one to explain. I know I'm here
to explain things but...
(drawing)
I'm kinda just working all of the place so it's hard for
me to just sort of think about each
of these parts that I'm trying to complete
as I
jump around. And when you're doing that you just
wanna keep moving around to get as much...
(drawing)
You're kinda always comparing everything to everything else.
So see I'm not spending longer than maybe
a couple of seconds in one place.
(drawing)
I also - you'll see that when we move on
to softer media
it'll be considerably easier to establish
a tone like that would say
a charcoal pencil or something like that.
It's harder to do it with a graphite
pencil
unless you really push it into the paper
but then you're
kinda hurting your paper a little bit.
And so, in order to build up a tone you do it slowly. But on the other
hand this is why I wanted you
to work in graphite pencil because
it does in fact slow
you down, not allow you to get the tone that you
need so you're always sort of
comparing one value to another and
building back up and slowly building up the values
as opposed to getting them in there right away.
And I think this is very important to practice
before we move on to something like a charcoal
pencil or Conté crayon
where that's much harder to control
and if you're off it's harder to erase and you can run into a lot of
problems. So this will
definitely prepare you
for that.
So I think
this could be a little bit softer.
(drawing)
A little bit softer.
(drawing)
I like the relationship of the
head to the neck.
I like that there's not a lot
happening there and yet we still see something going on.
I like that we do get some lines that are giving us this idea that
the neck is cylindrical.
So we do have some form in there but
we don't want it to take all the attention.
(drawing)
See there I just put in some sharp lines.
So in some places we soften them, in other places we
really just want an edge that's sharp
and clear because that too is an important
part of completion. So there's that little bit of
an edge of the plane on the side is
catching more light than this top plane.
So
it's time to do that now.
So I think it's beginning
to come across. Beginning to come across.
Really get this plane in there.
There's a little bit of a terminator right there and cast shadows
so just some small stuff. Just some small stuff.
Take as much time
as you need when you're working on this head.
Think about each
step. Each value, each relationship,
each contrast.
But other times you gotta just allow yourself to work intuitively.
And you see that with experience that'll begin to happen
The whole
idea of this approach is to build
up your intuition to the point where you're really not thinking about
(drawing)
each part of the process. It's happening automatically.
So, at that point, you're thinking
a lot more about your intentions,
your
sort of artistic intent along with your
intentions. You're -
the idea that you're trying
to convey. And so
it's not so much about comparing values
but more about how everything
that you do on the page
brings you closer to your idea and what you wanna say
with this. Or rather away.
And that really is what completion is and how to
really know when you're completed.
When you've arrived at the goal
that you set for yourself.
And at the same time
we're not gonna get overly
into this, but then at the same time you realize that some
of the goals that you - that in the
process you might have even sort of even subconsciously come up with
some other ideas and the piece you're working
on is not about what you intended at all but it is about
something important.
(drawing)
Now I'm not saying that you will feel this right away and I'm not even saying that
this is what this exercise is about. This exercise is primarily about
really sort of synthesizing everything
that we were speaking of in this course.
Some principles of construction, light and shadow,
mark making.
(drawing)
But it is a way in to a much more creative process.
(drawing)
I just feel like this cast shadow that we discussed before,
I wanna separate it more.
So the other issue with completion is that
it's endless. You can just keep at it
forever and
you know, you
see I made that
tiny little curve, which I think looks good but is definitely not what we see
in front of us because it's more of a curve that you would see
on human lips, but ah whatever.
We'll keep it.
(drawing)
It's endless. So you keep improving things and then you
destroy improvements and then you bring them back.
And maybe overall you've improved the whole thing or maybe overall you've
lost something. So there is a point where you
just have to stop. And if something didn't
work out the way that you thought it would, just do it more.
I'm a fan of
quantity
working its way into quality.
(drawing)
Alright, I'm beginning to
not see what else needs
to be added for our purposes.
Just kind of
get some clarity on the outlines
on the major plane changes, major
sort of -
would be an important point because it's sort of an insertion point but we're not talking about
anatomy as of yet so we're not gonna really think about
why we're accentuating this part, but I just would.
And I recommend
that you do.
Essentially you want to just accent the insertion of the
neck into the head.
So I'm gonna just step away
and take a look. I think this
plane can go a little bit darker.
And just kinda clean up those
smudge marks that I didn't intend to make.
(drawing)
Even within the shadow
I feel like we're just accentuating some of these
areas to show that they're closer to us and everything else we need to turn around.
I'm just, sort of, within the shadow itself,
I'm pushing this
major plane change
that we're seeing between the side plane and
the plane turning away into the back of the head. The back plane I
guess. I
just wanna show that without disturbing our
sort of light and shadow relationships.
So by emphasizing this,
this whole area begins to really read like it's catching ambient light that's coming
from the back. And that's my goal here.
Just want a little bit more on these shadows. Just on some of these things.
(drawing)
Keep getting this plane a little bit darker. Here I almost want to
connect them a little bit with the background that we've established.
Get these
in.
(drawing)
And here I'm almost
using my eraser to kind of add a little
bit of a hatch of its own. I wouldn't overdo that but it's sometimes
(drawing)
is an interesting effect. So now I'm just gonna go
over the background one more time. Kind of just see where we're -
where we are. You can't be
objective about this. And
you usually - and I think it has to
do with the fact that you have an idea of what you want
everything to look like to some degree before
you begin. And
you're always kind of okay with everything at the
beginning because you still think oh it's far enough away
from what I want this to look like. But then when you're
beginning to feel unhappy, it means that -
it means that you realize that you're
sort of - it's moved along to a point -
moved along to a point that is now slightly
outside of your control and you realize that you haven't achieved
what you wanted to achieve before you started.
But let me tell you
that feeling, for the most part, will never
go away. I have this every time I complete
anything that I'm working on.
Because it just isn't ever what I had
in my mind. And so, even
here I, before evaluating it, I recommend -
so you realize
that it's complete, you're kind of unhappy
because you think you could've done a better
job, and so at that point it's time
to put some final
marks, turn it away, and look at it
in at least a few days. And I assure you that
in a few days, there still might be things
that concern you and you want to go back into
but it will not be half as bad
as you thought. And it might actually be
quite good. It might surprise you.
How your opinion of your own
work
will change.

For your final assignment, you'll be working on the stretched paper that you
prepared at the beginning of The Fundamentals section
of my program. Using the photos of John Asaro's
planes of the head model, draw the head, making sure to work through the three
main steps in order. Begin with construction, apply
your shadows, and only then your half tones. If you run into any issues
remember to consult your program coach. I wish you
the best of luck.

So that concludes the first part: The Fundamentals.
Now you have the tools necessary to embark
on a study of the human figure. Make sure you have gone
through all of the assignments and that the techniques and procedures we have covered
feel comfortable, almost second nature, before
beginning the next part of the program. Thank you for spending this time with me and I
look forward to seeing you as we begin our exploration of the human figure.

Planes Of The Head Drawing

Source: https://www.nma.art/videolessons/russian-drawing-course-part-7-planes-of-the-head-project/

Posted by: taylorthue1949.blogspot.com

Share this post