'I'm always looking for the Hows and the Whys and the Whats,' said Muskrat, 'That is why I speak as I do. You've heard of Muskrat's Much-in-Little, of course?'
'No,' said the child. 'What is it?'
- The Mouse and his Child. Russell Hoban.

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Sunday 25 April 2010

Graphite tonal drawings of hands


Quotes from James Ormsby, my tutor:

"Life drawings is the bootcamp of art. ... it's the 'no bullshit' zone ... An artist is judged on the quality of his [or her] life drawing portfolio."

We have begun the week plunging straight in. Why prevaricate? - we have a lot to cover in one term. Homework: twenty graphite tonal drawings of hands. Phew.

Here's a beginning. The resolved ones took me more than an hour each.
Click image to enlarge.


13 comments:

  1. Too good Katherine! Such patience.

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  2. Thank you YP. Patience is one of my strengths. It means I am dogged!

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  3. Inadvertently deleted your new comment YP, no, not 'dogeared' although I am showing signs of wear!

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  4. OK. I should be writing up my Blogs having been out of Blogland for a few days. But I had to come and see where you were up to. So that's about 15 minutes and a whole cup of Fair Trade green tea with citrus gone. Why? Because I didn't think the index finger of the 'flat' hand was quite right. The light seemed to bend it somehow. So I spent ages (beaing in mind it was before 7 am!) looking at my hand (I couldn't borrow anyone else's) with the light coming from different angles.

    I am amazed. When I worked out exactly where the light was coming from my index finger looked like that too. How odd. I don't mean your picture - I mean my perceptions. Perhaps I should question these things more often. I could learn something.

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  5. I am pleased my work stands up to such close scrutiny! Are you talking about the reflected light on the right hand side, or the cast shadow from the middle finger? Or something else? In reality, the tip of my left index finger bends slightly towards the left, and I think this is shown? Although the light does make it appear exaggerated.

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  6. Oddly the tip of my left index finger bends slightly towards the left too.

    No. I think that it might be a combination of the darkness of the cast shadow from the middle finger combined with the 'bending' of the shadow on the top of the index finger which to me made the finger appear to bend slightly to the right.

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  7. we're just amazed that you can work it all out.

    talent is one thing, this you've shown yourself to have to spare.

    but hard work is something else entirely. kudos on your hard work and perseverance.

    as an aside, we love comic-books, and in that world, fans can be merciless towards the artists. a running joke concerns one particular,very accomplished illustrator who cannot draw a proper foot, so he always finds ways to hide the character''s feet behind objects, other characters or off-panel.

    fans keep track of the many inventive ways he finds to camouflage his drawing of feet.

    dunno why we're bringing this up; perhaps to say, we don't think you'll be having that type of problem. love your work.

    ..
    .ero

    oh. and p.s. our own blogging is on hiatus, but we still make the occasional round and visit our blogo-friends.

    ..
    .

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  8. Hands and feet aren't easy! I guess that's why we're having to do so many. Thanks for dropping in sUNnY!

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  9. By the way, talent is a very small part of art. It is 9/10 work.

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  10. At one time (and perhaps again some time) I would have been happy to put in the hard work. It's a shame about the lack of 10% talent on my part though!

    It would seem to me that you have at least 11%

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  11. Thank you GB. It has taken me more than half a lifetime to come to the realisation that the hard work is most satisfying when one is doing what one loves. When it's not, it's just hard work.

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  12. Ah. Such wisdom in one so young!

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  13. Ha. Well, I was brought up with that ethic that for something to be worthwhile or good for you, it probably shouldn't be enjoyable, and actually should probably actually taste bad, like medicine.

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