Shape and shading
Although this class was about focusing on the thumb we actually worked more on shading etc. Our teacher, Brendan has been trying to instill in us a way of drawing that makes sense in principle to me but for some reason, I find incredibly hard to put into practice. Basically the idea is to start off with the simplest shape before you and subdivide that until you have something of complexity and feeling of form. This week this principle expanded to shading - find the main mid-tone and then sub-divide that into light and dark areas etc. and just keep going in that fashion. This is rather good for me as I am useless at finding, and thus achieving subtle mid-tones in my drawings. I also ‘fluff around’ in my drawings when really I should be looking for the definite shapes of tone that describe the surface etc. So this was a good exercise for me. And after weeks of producing lack-lustre drawings I was actually quite pleased with this one. Bonus time.
