A New Challenge

So, I'm taking another figure drawing class this semester. I got totally hooked on it last semester and thought it in my best interest to keep up with it. Now I'm taking it with Fred Wessel, who has a very different approach to the figure. Not a better or worse way than I learned from Doug Andersen, just different. Doug focuses more on proportion and structure of the pose, and how to shade the forms right so everything fits together the way it's supposed to. Fred started us off with gesture lines, as Doug did, but even more so. He is very much into the spirit of the pose, and the poetry in the movement of the human body.

I think it's a good thing that I'm taking Fred's class after Doug's class. Because I've gotten the figure down better now, and know how to make the forms fit together better, I'm having a blast just going with the flow. But there are still some key things I want to work on. Like, the male figure. I do okay with long poses, but when it comes to gesture drawing a male figure, I tend to make it very curvy and feminine looking. And I want to get better at differenciating between the female and the male hips/pelvis. And forshortening is always a challenge, especially on shorter poses. I want to get better at spotting the position of the ribcage in those complex poses, as well as the angle of the shoulders and hips. AND... I've gotten quite comfortable with charcoal and toned paper. I think it's time I stepped outside my comfort zone, and into another area of criticism and improvement.

Onward to the figure!