For this exercise I was asked to arrange my model (my husband) at a slight angle in a chair. He lounged in his chair in our living room and watched tv.

I worked on white paper with a hb pencil.

I tried to block in my husbands basic shapes by looking carefully at which planes of the body are receding and which planes or lines are parallel to the edge of my picture plane.

Below is my first drawing:

 

 

 

With my first drawing I positioned myself in front of my husband, he was facing me but his legs were placed over the arm of the chair which meant their was a slight twist in his body. I stuck to just drawing the main shapes rather than worry about detail as I was focusing on trying to show form. Ultimately in focussing just on the shapes I think rather than showing the form of the body my drawing just looks flat. This was something I needed to improve upon for my next drawing.

Below is my second drawing:

For my second drawing I positioned myself to the side of my husband. I sat down on a chair at the same level as him and began to draw. I still focussed on shape but this time I tried to refine my use of shape to include more detail such as toe nails and shirt creases. Because of where I was sat (with his feet very close to me.) This was an excellent opportunity to take advantage of my new learnt technique of foreshortening.  However this made my drawing slightly more difficult as I am accustomed in every day life to the human figures proportions. For example I know that the average adults head fits into seven and a half times the size of a human body. However with this positioning none of these proportions made sense so I really had to concentrate and everything felt wrong whilst I was drawing. However on reflection this drawing is much more successful than my first.

Below is my third drawing:

For my third drawing I positioned myself slightly behind my husband but still to the side of him. I again tried to focus on just trying to outline his basic shapes, but making sure I was getting proportions and angles correct. On reflection, I did manage to capture the essence of my husbands form. However I I haven’t managed to capture the true shape of his head in this drawing and I have made his fore arms too narrow.

This exercise has really made me look at the human form and see shape. This hopefully will help me in future when drawing the human form. I found that splitting the human form up into basic shapes makes the whole process less daunting and much more helpful when working out proportion.