Sunday, January 30, 2011

A Portriat. The fourth stage


Here, all the same points I made in the very first stage, are the ones I'm still considering and adjusting in the later stages.

I have yet to get any more detailed, but notice, the red dots are variation of line weights, all the lines are still straight, but have been broken up into smaller straight lines, and their relationship to one another is something I'm considering more now.

The tones are now definitely broken up into three variations, as denoted by the blue lines: darkest dark which blends from the background and into the hair, the paper tone which is the middle tone of the drawing but for now is being used as the light tone, and a tone in between the two which helps in smaller shapes to connect the bigger ones, adjust major rhythms, and help in some of the soft transitions from one shape to the other.

I'm continuing to look at everything as a whole, abstracting the shapes so that they are something else. I'm trying here not to look at the forehead as a forehead but as a giant letter M, or the chin leading up into the bottom lip as a whale throwing its tale over its head.

It sounds silly, but abstracting the shapes, and then comparing them to one another is a key element in getting a more precise drawing. We believe we know what these things are that we draw, we have preconceived notions of cheeks, chins, foreheads, and noses; we tend to make generalizations as we transcribe what we see. But the longer one studies these shapes, the more they seem to change, what is really happening is that we're coming to see the more exact shape, but this takes looking at it over and over again.

No comments: