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| Marjorie Forgues' figure drawing, day 1. |
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Marjorie Forgues' figure drawing, day 2. |
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Taking a painting or drawing class is always a learning
experience, but often I find I learn a great deal from other artists in the
class as well. This is especially
true if I am able to see the other student's drawing or painting progress, or
ask the student about the painting techniques he or she uses or the drawing ideas they have. Of course, it can be especially helpful when taking classes at organizations such as the Art League in
Alexandria, Virginia, because the other students are sometimes teachers continuing to learn their
craft from other teachers.
This was the case a few weeks ago in Robert Liberace's
drawing tutorial and painting class. Marjorie Forgues is a monitor and student in Rob's
classes, and has worked with Rob for years, but she is also an instructor teaching portrait painting and color workshops at the Art
League. Recently, I watched
her develop a charcoal drawing over two half-days.
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My figure drawing in red chalk, focusing on
the torso as an egg.
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First, she worked on the structure and construction of
the
figure drawing. You can see she kept lines that suggested the initial position of the model's right arm, which
either changed during the pose or which Marjorie liked better a little lower for
purposes of design.
After she was generally satisfied with the structure she had
gotten, she moved on to better establish both the shapes and shadows, and the
direction of those shadows.
Finally, Marjorie worked to model the form, in this case
using hatching in predominantly
straight lines to turn the figure.
Marjorie is an
advocate of using the "egg" to draw anatomical shapes, like the head (2 eggs) and torso (one egg for the rib
cage), in order to make clear the length and width and form of the underlying structures. Then she places other shapes, like the
nose and breasts, on the eggs. Of course, there is also the time-honored practice of using
a cube and rectangle as a basis for construction of the head and torso. Which do you use?!!!
--Judith