Week 10 - Last Day of Class

Here are some composition notes we reviewed on the last day of class. Hope you have enjoyed the class and have learned something useful for your personal or professional works.
Also, I would like to thank everyone's input & feedback in improving the class. Have a great break and I will see you guys next term!!

Week 9 - Review Day

No demo this week, just focused on providing feedbacks for students' in class drawings.

Week 8 - Form Lighting Demo

Week 8 - Form Lighting Notes

Week 7 - Leg Structure Demo

Week 6 - Upper Torso Demo

This week the focus was to teach the students how to switch mind set between checking 2D shapes and 3D forms to help them catch mistakes and gesture relationships in their drawing.

With the middle form break down image, I am trying to illustrate that there are gestures to the way the planes of the body "Flow" together (middle right). After the stage of laying in the big shapes in simple forms, I start to break the body into planes that reinforce both the gesture and the perspective of the body. You can see how the box of the ribcage flow into the bottom of the pelvis area and how the corner of the pelvis bone flairs out to create a gesture flow to the legs.

Planes of the body is never mechanical and always have a gesture, off center apex or slight twist to the form. The gesture of the form always relates to the other body parts that are before and after it.

You can find similar information on these flow or abstraction break down from Frank Reilly's teachings. You can find some information from his notes here:
http://www.dhfa.net/Artiststatement2.html

I do not start my drawings with the chart, it often over complicates things and makes the drawing flat or over stylized.
I like to use it as a "tool" on a case by case basis, if it happens to helps me organize my details to push weight, gesture or form.

Week 5 - Lay-in Demo

We are slowly moving up to 2 hrs poses soon and the class is working on establishing accurate lay-in with likeness & expression. Here is the 1 hr demo from the class: