figure

Figure Drawing – update on my Summer project

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

beachsketches
I keep a sketchbook in my beach bag and try to pull it out while we are at the beach. I wish people would stop moving! – lol. Last week I realized I’d forgotten a pencil. So, I snapped a couple of photos of people by the shore. When I got home I sketched them. They were easier to draw – since they were staying still. 🙂

Here are my previous posts on this subject:
1. Figure Drawing – My Summer Project
2. Figure Drawing – the inside of the body

Figure Drawing – the inside of the body

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

skeletonmuscles

I know, you’re probably laughing at my picture right now, but I thought sketching the inside of the body would be a helpful exercise. I started with a skeleton sketch, then laid tracing paper over it and sketched in some of the muscles. I’m hoping this will help me next time I sketch a figure.

Currently, I’m using a book I found at the library, “Drawing Figures,” by Ray Smith. But I’m looking for others. If anyone has any recommendations on books or videos – that would be great!

I’ve done a couple of sketches of the kids this past week.

sketchjsketcho

I’m already excited about my progress on my summer project (figure drawing)! To give credit where credit is due – Here is a link to a post on “A Thing Created,” which talks about understanding the skull underneath the face for portrait drawings. Thank you Erisha!

Figure Drawing – My Summer Project

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

figure drawing
I realized the other day that even though there are a couple of weeks left til the kids are out of school – I only have 3 days of quiet “me” time left! Ahhhh! I’ve been doing so well since I made my creative resolution. I can’t let it fall apart now. 🙂

With this in my mind, I went paper shopping and took my time looking at all the art products in the store. As soon as I saw the figure drawing books, I knew how I was going to stay motivated this summer. I needed a summer project and it was going to be figure drawing.

When I got home I took the wooden figure from my daughter’s room and started my first sketch. Later on, I took out a book from the library to help me with my project.

My weekly checklist is getting longer and longer by the minute! lol. But I’m excited to see how I can progress in figure drawing if I can keep at it over the next 13 weeks. I’ll keep you posted!

Painting a Figure (Little Girl Digging – Part I)

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

girldigging
I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but I’m excited about this painting! I started by mixing a grey base color for my sand. I mixed thalo blue, cadmium red, and cad. yellow (as opposed to using black and white) because I wanted the sand to have color in it. I’ve struggled before with painting sand! I covered the entire canvas in this color, even where the ocean and little girl will be.
sandbackground

I added little ticks on my canvas to show where the grid is.
grid on digging

I mixed cad. red and white and added some cad. yellow to get a flesh tone, which I mixed with my base color. I wanted a color that would work as a base for the little girl, that wasn’t far off from my original (sand) base color. This way, I won’t feel intimidated to loosely sketch in the girl. Hopefully, I’ll easily be able to change any area “back” to sand if necessary.
mixingskintone

Following the grid closely, I added in the shape of the little girl. I plan on flipping the canvas over and refining her shape (with the same color). As I start to feel confident in her shape, I’ll start adding colors that will define her and pull her out of the sand. I’m developing this process on the fly – wish me luck!