The Expressive Figure: Expressive Figure 1_31

The Expressive Figure Assignment

Concept: Hatching for Volumetric Form

Materials:

Materials

Vine or Willow Jumbo Charcoal ( Generals, Coates, etc.), Graphite lead and holder
Dry Media Sources: Hard Pastel sticks (NuPastel, Creatacolor, etc.) Conte Crayon, Stabilo Pastel Pencils or equivalent,
Canson Mi Tientes toned paper or Strathmore toned 90 lb drawing paper 12" x 19" or similar Ledger or any similar 60 to 90 lb paper
Faber-Castell Kneaded Eraser or Chamois cloth

Trois Crayon color set

Red Ochre/Sanguine
Black
Ivory/White

Starting with charcoal, quickly and lightly sketch and draw a gestural mannikin of the pose with an emphasis on proportions and action. This mannikin is geometrically analogous to a "doll" with a peanut-shaped volume approximating the torso, cylinders for limbs and neck, and an ovoid for the skull. Orient the mannikin in space by drawing a "medial line" through the center of the front and back of the torso as well as the center and back of the neck and skull.

With the template of the mannikin pose as a guide, consider how the volumes of the "peanut", "cylinders, and "ovoid" describe the volumes "in space" and can taper as they move away from us and loom larger the closer they are to us. Be cognizant of this "in and out" spatial occupancy.

Once this lightly sketched gestural template is drawn, use vine/willow Charcoal or hard Pastel chalk (red ochre/sanguine or equivalent) or Conte crayon media and apply contour hatching to the volumes and define parameters of anatomy. Applying contour hatching is known as modeling the form- similar to how a sculptor models or carves the volumes of clay. Model the illuminated volumes with contour or cross-hatching and as the form turns into shadow use a unidirectional parallel hatch line to "Mass" the shadow. Model the lights but mass the shadow.

Use the Ivory White hard pastel/Conte media to "heighten" the form in the light- lights are applied on those planes that are more parallel with the light source. Model (hatch) the lights with strokes that conform with the geometry of the form.

Refine the drawing using Charcoal or hard pastel/Conte media by emphasizing those contours that have the most absence of light- known as accents. Remember- darks are not just dark spots but are aspects of form that light cannot penetrate, like folds and creases, or are the beginnings (nexus) of cast shadows. When a volume casts a shadow across another form, the occlusion of light is always darkest adjacent to the spot where the forms converge because the gravitational attraction of the masses absorbs the photons most completely. In this way, you can calibrate the relative value of the tone of a cast shadow. Darker next to the object that is casting the shadow and lighter as it "crawls" away from the object. Apply darks for hair and accents (irises, nostrils, crease of lips, eyebrows, eyelashes, etc.

Joe Sheppard