Schedule 7A

Return to contour.

DEVELOPING THE LONG STUDIES.

"You have been rushed through a number of exercises in what may seem a very short time."

Not if you take as long as I did between the exercises.

"But it is necessary in the beginning to avoid the great danger of monotony."

Too late.

"When you attempted your fist contour drawing, you started with a blank."

Actually, I start all of my exercises like that.

"Now you start with all the accumulated knowledge and ability which you have gained from weeks of hard work."

"All" is a small word.

"Previously I have not asked you to devote more than an hour to one drawing, partly because I realised that your knowledge of the figure was limited and that you might not see enough to occupy you for a grater length of time. You will now be able to spend hours instead of minutes on a drawing before you have exhausted the sensation of touching the contours."

Which brings us to Exercise 17: The Five-Hour Contour. !!!!!!!! Yikes. I haven't been able to spend an hour yet on a contour, and now I'm asked to spend five days (an hour a day) on a single pose.

"If, after drawing the outside and inside contours, you find you still have time left, draw the important cross contours in their proper places on the figure."

Personally, I think this is going to look like a mess. A real whodiditandran.

"In a way this drawing will be a test of how much you have learned."

No doubt.

"Every step in this book is founded on your willingness to look at the model."

Ah, the killer words: your willingness. Kimon emphasized look, but that's really secondary.

I'm going to start on this five hour thing next session (Guess I'll be working on it two hours one day). As for the rest of the exercises...


Gesture of the day. It's the back of a woman with her head resting on her right knee. Can't you tell?


Supposed to be a cross contour exercise. Since it's been so long since I've did a contour, I decided to do a few small ones first. And yeap.


The DC. My sister and I cornered our friend Jason--who's very ticklish--in the kitchen and proceeded to attack him. That's him on the counter knocking things over attempting to defend himself.

Schedule 6E

This time it was some guy named Bryan. I saw his picture and I immediately thought, "I like this dude." And after reading what he had to say about himself, I'm quite sure I like this dude. I ran out of light green half-ishway into it and I didn't feel like mixing any more. I have this frugal mindset--for whatever reason--even though I got this set of water colors for free from my buddy Matt. Yes, Matt, this full set of Sakura special water colors in tubes 18 colors in plastic tray with transparent cover made in Japan non-toxic which you put into a box to be trashed when you moved. You know, just like your Playstation 2. Hmm. $10.25 on the back of the box. Okay, not *quite* a full set--four of them were dried up and I unintentionally mashed Yellow Ochre. Oops. Anyway, I think I should mix double what I expect to use from now on.


Daily Composition: Sitting in my sister's room while she tries (unsuccessfully) to persuade me to get a "pretty" haircut.

"Josh, you could be pretty!"

You know, this daily composition exercise is pretty fun. I get to backflash through my entire day, looking for an interesting scene to draw. If anything, it's a good memory exercise.

Schedule 6D

I have been scanning these modeled drawings in grayscale, since the purpose wasn't a coloring exercise, but a modeling one. That, and the orange and brown colors (close to the colors Kimon suggested) I was using weren't very attractive. Since my orange (pale orange) supply was getting pretty low, I decided to go with yellow and red. Which, well, I liked. Probably because I like fire. Those were the colored pencils that used to get the most use. Anyway, I included the color scan this time because, well, it amused me. Still does.

Bodybuilding.com is a great place to find models, by the way; this particular one was Aubrie Richeson.


Daily Composition: My sister. On my hammock. Really.

Schedule 6C

I wish I hadn't started outlining him. Oh well.

Exercise 16: Right-Angle Study

"During the first half of the pose, draw, not what you see, but what you think you would see if you were sitting at the left side of the model instead of in front of him. [...] Of course you will not always have a front view of the model for this exercise [...] but the principle remains the same."

This one was pretty fun. Reminded me of Exercise 11: Reverse Poses.


Original (colored) pictures copyright Posemaniacs.com.

Schedule 6B

Schedule 6A

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.etis siht fo noitcerid eht degnahc ecnis evah I .slliks gniward

But I changed back because, you know, that's kind of hard to read.


Yeap.

So Mr. Nicolaides says I should model with water color now. I haven't used water color in years.


Speaking of years, the years I most painted with water color were the years that I had to take naps, that is, before kindergarten. Think four to five. I've never liked naps, and so, when mom had left the house, I'd get out of bed, grab dad's old folding set of water colors, hop up to the bar in the kitchen, and paint my favorite dinosaur. Godzilla, of course. It never actually looked like Godzilla--even up to fourth grade (10), when my buddy Derrick rebuked the way I drew his back spikes. He was always green, too. And his fire was orange. And he usually fought fire breathing snakes. Regardless, it was better than naps.


"We are all prone to accept our preconceptions instead of investigating a thing fully and anew."

Yeap. I'm liking the change of medium, though. Water color certainly isn't as convenient as pencil, but learning is a good thing.

Intermission

I didn't draw it. I thought it was pretty spooky though, so I thought I'd share it. It was drawn by a dude named Bob Tilton in his book, Drawing and Painting Animals. Mom gave the book to me on, I think, my eleventh Christmas. The night before last was the first day that I had actually read all the way through it.

Yes, my training has much abated recently. Having many interests makes honing any particular one of them quite difficult--at least, that's been my experience. However, since Kimon said that the Daily Composition is the most important exercise, I did manage to make myself do a few of these during the intermission.

My sister's bird shed. I was getting a wayward snake out of it for her. About five feet long. Don't have a clue what kind of snake it was. I didn't hurt it, though.

The recreation room. I was running on the treadmill. There's a television facing sideways between the door and the machine, but I wasn't watching it (obviously, since it was sideways).

The back patio. The younger geese had jumped the low fence and were insulting the cat. The cat didn't much care.

A hallway in the Orangeburg Triumph Fabrications building. I was there for a job interview, following Wes to his office.

Bethel sanctuary. There for a vacation Bible school meeting. Dad and mom are directly in front of me. Megan, the organizer, is in the front. She's pretty hot--not that you (or I, looking at this drawing) can tell.

The back of my dad's shop. Dad and Cory were talking in the dusk.

The Bowmen drag strip. Steve Bolen was in front of me eating his just purchased chili dog and soda. Two cars were actually staging at the same time--a rarity for Bowman.

The back patio. Dad was sitting on the doorsteps just before lunch, tired.

Bethel staircase. Alan was helping me tote a desk to the van that Joey (the pastor) had just given to my mom.

The back of some guy's house in Orangeburg. Went with dad on a very long junkyard trip with some customers/friends (Cory, Trae, Lo, Tori). Ending up picking up an (junk) engine back in Orangeburg. New dude was talking to Trae. Dude's three girls're (only one was his, the one by the door with the exceptionally large baby doll) in the background.

Bethel fellowship hall. Larry Kreider was teaching at a mens' meeting. From left: Billy, Joey, dad, Larry (there were more of us). Larry had three polystyrene cups in front of him, trying to explain finances.