For the final project in my Life Drawing 2 class, we had to put at least one figure in an interesting setting. We had to look at a database of images of models in a variety of poses and work from that, picking three to play with. I worked on several ideas:
I ended up going with the third one, with this model:
At first I thought we could draw the figure clothed, and I liked her clothing, but it turns out they had to be nude (we were allowed to add transparent clothes, but the anatomy has to be visible). I developed my idea into a line drawing here:
I got some feedback on the proportions of the figure, so I had to fix that in the final drawing.
The piece had to be done on large paper and in color, but any medium was acceptable, so I decided to work in watercolor. I bought a 22 x 30 in. Aquabord to work on, which was my first time on this surface. I liked the idea of it not buckling, since I haven’t learned to stretch watercolor paper yet.
The Aquabord was interesting, kind of an odd surface. The water did still spread around, but not quite like on regular paper. I also taped a border around it, and the paint leaked under it so it wasn’t clean at all. I started working on this the day it was due so I didn’t get as much paint down as I would like, so the colors are fairly muted. But I really enjoyed doing the cats in particular. It was difficult to do the cage bars, for sure—I honestly don’t know how to do straight lines in paintings. I’m going to have to learn.
Here is the final version:
