A lot of progress was made in the span of the last progress post and this one because of the amount of time I had to work between the posts. In terms of background, you can see how I've started to add marks similar to my Old Master's drawing in order to further emphasize the main figure of the sketch. I'm planning on most likely putting more marks on the left side of my shirt in order to balance out the composition. As you can also probably see, I finally drew in the lips, and I'm not quite sure how satisfied I am with them. Of course I'll continue to adjust them a bit, but generally speaking I think the size and shape of them are what I'm going for. In terms of the hair, for the purpose of mimicking the original Old Master's drawing I'm going to keep it generally empty save for a few defining marks since the original Old Master's drawing had hair that was more outlined rather than filed in with marks. I'm still not entirely sure what I'm going to want to do in terms of adding marks to the shirt since the shirt is a good deal darker than the rest of my figure, but I am reserved about making the shirt really dark for a couple reasons. First, I don't want to make the shirt so dark that the integrity of the marks gets washed out, and it just looks like one giant blob of dark. Second, I want to keep the focus of the drawing to be on the face, and I am concerned that if I make the shirt too dark then the emphasis will be taken off of the face and take away from the content of the drawing. I'm going to continue to contemplate how to remedy this, but for right now I'm going to leave the shirt as it is as to not ruin the drawing.
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This progress report is going to be a bit shorter because as of right now my computer has crashed about three times and not saved my previous posts so I am remotely frustrated and just want to get this thing posted. Basically, I didn't get as much done as I originally had hoped because I failed to remember to take home a conte crayon until literally the last minute. Also when I got home, I realize that I have literally have no solid surfaces in my house to draw on, so I mounted my drawing on my wall and started drawing. Since I've never done a project vertically before, this should be an interesting experience for me. Drawing-wise, I have generally managed to draw the outline of my figure while also starting the mark-making. I didn't finish the outline of the lips of the hand because those are going to take more focus in order to draw correctly, and I don't want them to ruin the drawing. Also, since my figure is wearing clothes and has more hair than the figure in my Old Master's drawing, so that should make for a couple more obstacles in the future. Though, I am quite excited to start making marks on the shapes of the arms since I think that those could be some very dynamic marks. I apologize for the shorter length of this post, I am just trying to frantically get this posted before my computer decides to unexpectedly delete my post again. So next week I promise the report will be more detailed. As of week one, the major progress that has gone on this week is the sizing of the paper, the creation of the basic sketch, and the tinting of the paper. I ended up choosing the photo of me with my arms uncovered due to the fact that I think the shapes of my arm and the composition of the pose could make the drawing process more interesting. What I did first for the process was sizing the paper for my drawing. Initially the size of the page was exactly the size of the paper, but I decided to cut it so that there was more negative space on the left size in order to mimic the original pose of my Old Master's drawing. Next I made the basic sketch for the drawing, which was surprisingly easier than base sketch of the Old Master's drawing. This was most likely because of the fact that my portrait isn't a total full-body photo, which probably made the case of proportion easier. The last thing I accomplished for this week was the tinting of the paper, which I decided to make a light blue. The blue served a couple purposes, one being the fact that blue is complementary color of orange: the color of the conté crayon. Second is the fact that it serves a purpose more geared towards content which I will go into further detail once the whole project is finished. Disclaimer: I am sorry for the poor quality of photo, the sketch will be easier to see once conté crayon is applied. Now that I have completed my Old Master's drawing, I have started research and brainstorming for my next project: a self-portrait. In order to build off of the previous project, the self-portrait will be done in the same medium and general style as the Old Master's drawing. In my case, this means that my self-portrait will be in conté crayon with the same style as Andrea Del Sarto.
As of currently, I haven't chosen a single picture yet for my self-portrait, but the three pictures I have whittled my choices down to are shown below. Doing general research of self-portraits, most of them tend to be from the waist up, so I decided to embrace this and have my photos also be just of my upper body instead of full-body. As of the three photos that I took, I am quite partial to the second photo since I think that the pose is interesting while also being centered in the composition, but I will consult my art teacher before deciding the final photo that I will be using for the project. While the second photo is probably my favorite, there are aspects of the other photos that I like as well. The first photo I think that has a very interesting pose, and the fact that the third has my arms uncovered would probably serve to make drawing the portrait more interesting. In my next progress post I'll inform you of the picture I have chosen, but I believe that it will most likely be the second photo, and hopefully by then I will have properly sized my paper as well. Well, the time has finally come. I have completed my Old Master's drawing. First, for the rundown of challenges and accomplishments of this week. The assignment is officially due this Friday, but the critique is tomorrow, so I had significantly less time to work this week than I had in previous weeks. Eventually I had to come in during lunch in order to finish and mount my drawing before the critique tomorrow. However, most of the work I did this week was little changes and alterations to what I previously had. Once again, the primary areas of issue were the upper abdomen area and the shoulder/arms, and I had to repeatedly go back and make changes to the shape and shading of the area.
For how I feel about the result of my drawing, I'm having mixed feelings. When I looked at the drawing by itself and when it was mounted, I was quite proud of how it turned out and felt that the marks on the drawing were quite accurate to the original. However, now that I compare my drawing to the original, I'm feeling much more apprehensive about my success in recreating the original sketch. Looking at the two, there is an obvious difference between mine and the original. For starters, the conté crayon that I used appears to be a different color than the one used in the original. The one in the original looks to be more of a reddish color whereas mine more closely resembles a pure orange. The marks from my conté crayon also seem to be much lighter than the marks from the original. Unfortunately, this also makes the individual lines less distinguishable from each other, which I think is a distinct aspect to the original. While I think it turned out fine, I am a bit disappointed when I look at how it measures up to the original. The final image should be uploaded to my gallery soon, and I will keep updating about any further reflections. Typically speaking, the two main categories of his work, oil and fresco are split between the beginning and end of his art career. In the beginning, most of his work was fresco, for that's when he worked with Franciabigio in a partnership. Later, however, his work more commonly consisted of oil on wood paintings, such as his famous painting Madonna of the Harpies. For his grander works, Del Sarto typically worked on a large scale, especially with the frescoes, with the one exception in this post being his self-portrait, which is considerably smaller than his other works. Shearman, John (n.d.). Andrea Del Sarto. In The New Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica.
Web Gallery of Art. The Web Gallery of Art, http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/bio/a/andrea/sarto/biograph.html,. Accessed October 20, 2016. The Unofficial Guide to the Uffizi. The Virtual Unofficial Guide to the Uffizi, https://www.virtualuffizi.com/andrea-del-sarto.html, Accessed October 19, 2016. As of week three, I managed to complete the majority of the Old Master's drawing. Of course, there will be minor tweaks and adjustments that I will make as I continue to work and put the finishing touches on certain areas. For this week, the hardest part of working was definitely as I began to work on the abdomen area. As seen in the previous reference image of the sketch, the abdomen area is very diverse in its range of line quality which give the appearance of value. Due to this, it was very difficult to properly replicate the marks in the area, and I even have not completely finished working on the area. The main difficulty was attempting to darken the lines enough to convey the shadow of the area while also maintaining the integrity of the mark. In other exciting news, due to the fact that I was able to make a large amount of progress in completing the figure, I started filling the negative space with the searching lines of the original sketch, which I think makes the sketch look a thousand times better. As I further work on areas such as the abdomen and the shoulders I will also continue to add the searching lines, which I believe will only further to improve the appearance of the image. As of week two, the progress of the Old Master's drawing is coming along quite nicely. Unfortunately, due an irregular schedule at Maggie Walker, the time available for studio time was cut short, so I didn't get to make as much progress as I ideally wanted for this week. However, despite this slight hurdle, I am satisfied with how the drawing is developing. For a brief summary of what was completed this week, I started applying the medium, conté crayon, to the paper. I fully completed outlining the figure with the medium and have started applying marks to the lower part of the figure. Looking at the picture to the right, you can see that I have almost completely finished one leg and started a bit of work on the other one as well. By the next progress report I'd like to have finished the lower half of the figure while possibly starting on the upper half of the figure. The biggest obstacle I see in the future is working on the face since there are many divots and areas of different elevations, so making sure that the proper mark-making is on the face can be crucial to assuring that the sketch will end up looking correct. However, whether I am able to start the face this week will determine when I have to address this problem. Here to the left is a more zoomed-in picture of the full figure drawing so that the area of progress can be more plainly seen. Looking at this photograph, the individual marks are much easier to view, so you can better see my process in recreating the sketch. The majority of the marks in the original sketch are diagonal lines that are quite close together, but there are also some marks that don't seem to have a particular direction in which they are going, but these were most likely the pre-lines that helped to form the figure of the sketch. One of the harder aspects of drawing with the medium is constantly making sure that the medium has a sharp enough end that the marks can still be individually seen. If this sketch used shading to create a sense of value, then this wouldn't be an issue, but since the purpose of this whole project is to emphasize the individual mark, it is essential that the marks are distinct enough from each other to be easily recognized. Due to this, having to repeatedly adjust the crayon so that the sharp end is being used is simply a requirement of this project. This sums up the progress of this week, and I will leave you all with the fact that I am jealous that this figure has better calves than I ever will.
Looking here at the more close-up image of the text, the head and extended arm were a large issue, quite literally, as both were over-sized and caused issues with fitting everything correctly in the composition. Originally, the arm was much larger width-wise which pushed the discus out of the composition. Due to this I lessened the width of the arm and shortened it a bit. I was required to do the same thing with the head also simply for the purpose of maintaining the correctness of the image. In addition, I also began to practice with my medium of choice, conté crayon. This practice is documented in my sketchbook and consisted mainly of experimenting with the medium with line quality and mark-making. For the first post, my class is beginning an observational study/drawing of an old master's drawing. The primary purpose of this project is to focus on the marks made in the sketches of the old masters in the Renaissance. While these sketches were not particularly large, these drawings for the project will be proportionally enlarged significantly in order to further emphasize the mark making with the medium and make them easier to view. Though the scale of the sketch will be modified, all other aspects of the sketch will be kept the same, including proportion and medium used. The sketch I have selected to recreate is Study for the Baptism of the People by Andrea Del Sarto from 1515 in conté crayon. I chose this sketch, for I was attracted to the clear and deliberate mark making particularly around the legs and the arm in the background. In addition to this, I find the pose of the figure dynamic enough to make the process of recreation much more interesting. Pictured to the right is the reference picture I will be using during my process in observing the renaissance study. Del Sarto, Andrea. Study for the Baptism of the People. 1515, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Back to the Classics.com, http://www.backtoclassics.com/gallery/andr eadelsarto/studyforthebaptismofthepeople/ |
AuthorAs a student in the art department, all progress on future projects will be documented on this page. Archives
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