2 nudes from pastel class
I attended a 3 day pastel drawing class last week. Now I have to stress I've never drawn with pastels, I've only used charcaol & graphite so I found colour quite intimidating for some reason. I'm just a woos I think. Everyone else finished lots of drawings, I only did 4 for the whole 3 days & I didn't finish ANY!
These 2 are from life, I've posted one in Mikes site but it's from a photo. I really enjoyed the actual drawing part & the teacher was great, she gave us a fantastic demo of measuring to get the dimensions/perspective right & it just sort of clicked with me although I know these aren't great drawings but they're better than alot I've done in the past.
If anyone can give me advice on using colour please go ahead. The teacher kept talking about warm & cool shadows & I couldn't distinguish which was which. I understand that warm has reddish browns tones & cools bluey grey but they just looked like shadows to me!! Sometimes I'd think yeah it's cool & then I'd change & think it was warm. I'm a bit confused.
Linda
The proportions on these look very good. Especially the second one's leg structure. I have NO idea on color...I have done very few pieces in it and I guessed my way through them. It sounds like you had a good time at your class though...the teacher actually sounds good...don't hear much of that unfortunately. Must be why the attendance is so hard to come by eh?
Beth
The eye is the perfect instrument for learning the laws of nature, and the artist the perfect person to illustrate them. - Leonardo da Vinci
Hi Linda, these are looking really good - especially for your first attempt at pastel!
Not knowing which school of 'art' your teacher was coming from... my understanding is this...The teacher kept talking about warm & cool shadows & I couldn't distinguish which was which.
Try and think of colour more as TONE rather than 'colour'. The tonal areas you are trying to show will reflect cool shadows and warm highlights. Translate in your brain the colour to black and whites if you can... to try and understand where your shadow and highlights are. So where something is in the shade (or black shadow), or receeding from veiw will go into the cooler tonal ranges. Where something is in direct light will be 'hot' (whites, oranges reds), and areas that are forward and more lighted are warmer (oranges, reds , purples).
BUT... often where there is pressure - like a hand on the floor, bringing some warm tones (say a blue with red/purple into it) will not only give you the feeling of warmth, but also of pressure.
There are reams and reams of much better explained written material on colour theory and how to use it out there Linda...
Perhaps StLuke or Alexi could recommend some reading for you?
Linda Weil
http://home.exetel.com.au/lindaweil
http://www.starving-artists.net/index.htm
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
Rene Descartes
'I think the idea of art kills creativity' Douglas Adams
Thanks Beth & Linda, yes the teacher was very good. I loved that she gave demonstrations & didn't just talk about it. She is considering running a pastel class one day per week this year & it will be local so I'll be putting my hand up to do it if she does.
thanks for the explanation Linda it makes sense.
Linda M
You kidding me! I did life drawing three hours every Mon. night for six months and your reclining nude is better in structure than I ever got. It's very very difficult isn't it. Imweil is right on, on color. Another way to approach it is the gray or light blue of the toned paper is your shadow mid-tone. That is it is the lightest of all the shaded areas. From there you down to deepest shadow where ever it belongs...from deepening grays to transparent black. Those grays, greens, blues and blacks can be warmed with burnt sienna or burnt umber where needed, if they are needed, and I am skeptical the warmth is needed - where an arm, rib cage, thigh curves down under to the floor for example. If the paper were toned beige or light pink the opposite would occur. That would be the flesh mid-tone and from that you might add some yellow and spare white high lights and nothing else for light. From there you tone downward with warm red shadows, ochers etc. until grays, and darkest shadows of burnt sienna/umber cooled with green, blue or black if it looks good. With so much of the flesh mid-tone being beige paper, cooling the deepest shadows might be a mistake. Here is where intuition, discerning eye and gut feeling takes charge. Forget any rules or theories. Thoroughly confused by now? You can carry pastel art as high as it can go with only a dozen sticks of pastel. Grays are very useful for retina blending. A stroke of gray tends to take on any warm color immediately next to it entirely by workings of the retina in the eye ball. Ochers seem to me to have similar properties with adjacent warm or cool color. That might be why Vermeer toned so many of canvasses an ocher tone - often a mix of raw umber, lead, and bone black. And close up photos show this base tone untouched or clearly bleeding through glazes all over the paintng. Thus, a pastel drawing of a nude on gray paper, the gray would be 60% or more of the flesh tone. On beige paper, the beige could be 80% or more of the flesh tone. Or juggle those percentages to whatever they should be. More confused than ever?
Luke
Err yes Luke I am confused but it's hot & I'm tired. Thanks for taking the time to look & comment & thanks for the positive words about my drawing.
I need to be a bit more confident & be prepared to make mistakes & not stress about them.
Linda
Really nice! There is a guy in deviantart who also has done lots of amazing pastel nudes, his gallery is here: http://dangerousllama.deviantart.com/gallery/ I just love them and thought you might wan't to take look.
Eve
[i]i am really going to confuse you now!
within some shadows there is also reflective higlights..so within a shadow there is a highlight that is warm..though not bright as within the lighter sides? its a highlight.....
colors on the bright side...red orange yellow are warm
colors opposite, green blue are cooler..blues being the coolest...i tend to think greens are somewhere in that mid zone though...between warm and cold...i just cant think of grass as totally being cold..yanno?..
Thanks Eve, I had a look at the link, he's great, thanks for that.
Yes OWS, you're right, I'm confused.
Linda M
okay..risking that you will beat me silly,
i have taken your first nude and added a few touches into the shadow areas, adding a sort of indigo blue, and a cad redish tone to some shadows in the flesh...all this tends to demonstrate is that it adds depths,warmth and coolness to shadows...
i found a link:
http://www.reif.com/tips.html
i think it might help you out a bit with pastels...seems like a very informative one...hope this helps!
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks