Modelled Drawing in Watercolour Sch 6A

A few studies from yesterday....

1/2 hour - 1 min Gesture Drawings (25 drawings)

1/2 hour - Modelled Drawing in Watercolour (1 drawing)

1/4 hour - Memory Drawings 

Nicolaides (in The Natural Way to Draw) has segmented his lessons to 3 hour a day sessions (with a 1/4 h break in between), but recommends breaking that in to smaller sessions according to ones own personal schedule.

I usually try to do at least 11/2hs daily which usually starts with 1 minute gesture drawings like below. 

1 minute Gesture Drawing with the help of 'Pose Maniacs' (although they are only 2D images, they are invaluable in giving me more chance to practice on a multitude of figure poses that is quite difficult to do without a life model) 4B Graphite on newsprint

The images for the gesture drawings above were sourced from a fantastic free online drawing website for artists called 'Pose Maniacs'. It's useful for practicing gesture poses as they actually have timed (from 10 sec to 1 1/2 min) random poses, that change according the countdown you specify. However I do try on the whole to work from real life models or objects more often than these 2D images, as real 3D life objects are infinitely better practice, using more refined observational skills.

1/2 hour Modelled Watercolour on Mahjong Paper
This study should be done on manilla card (I hadn't bought any yet)

The modelled form above has been progressively built upon earlier methods and media (lithographic crayon and pen) of drawing the modelled form according to Nico's method. In this section one starts to use watercolour using just 3 colours - yellow ocher, burnt sienna (I didn't have it so used burnt umber instead) and black.

Nico really takes one down to the very basics and core feelings put in to a drawing and then progresses from there,.. His lessons have helped me learn with more depth and feeling (the essence that is lost in usual analytical drawings). And without a doubt each lesson has been quite an important stepping stone to the next,.... however it would take forever to go in to each detail of these earlier lessons, so hopefully my focus on only the primary objective of the currant lessons will suffice.

In earlier lessons one used the pen or lithographic crayon and a tactile approach to drawing by really pushing harder and harder in to the paper where the surface of the object receded further and further away from the artist (thus creating darker lines). Now instead of using the tactile feeling of pressing harder, one uses darker colours (more black watercolour) as the object recedes back (according to the shape of the form and immaterial of the actual colour or shadows created by the object).

Well ta for now then and thanks for visiting... :)