Earth tone artgraf and more life drawing

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Encouraged by the success we have been having with the artgraf watercolor graphite, we bought a set of earthtone graphite by artgraf. It arrived today and I tried it out in today's life drawing. Here are a couple.

I am proud of this first one because I started with gesture lines as opposed to my obsession with getting the contours in. I think this pose captured the original gesture quite well.

life drawing in earth tone artgraf watercolor graphite

You can see the color swatches of the earth tone artgraf on the right. The colors are quite suitable for figure drawing. The main trouble I had was using a small brush. The graphite doesn't like being mushed around unlike watercolor, so the right size brush is important. I could have lived without all the streaks in this picture.

life drawing in earth tone artgraf watercolor graphite

The next one is just regular graphite. I quite liked the gesture in this one too. I think I am getting somewhere capturing the human body.

More artgraf practice

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Husband and I are continuing to do figure drawing together, and here is one of mine from today.

One thing I am noticing in  my sketches is that my quick drawings of faces has become more convincing than before. All of that head drawing practice must be paying off. I still not get any good likeness, but that's beside the point as these are supposed to be gesture sketches not portraits.

Most days I am so tired by the end of the day from work and chores that I find myself not having the mental bandwidth to think of anything elaborate to work on. I like to keep a regular art habit though, and figure drawing seems to work out best. There isn't a whole lot of decision making on what to draw or paint (hubby chooses one or two pictures for us to work on), and keeping the tools simple (pencil and artgraf, or monochrome watercolor) makes it simple to setup and tear down. 

The other advantage of doing these simple figure drawings is that it affords me an opportunity to think of ways to compose an interesting picture by manipulating the value patterns, while keeping most of the other parameters constant. 

Figure drawing practice

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It has been a long while since I have done any figure drawing. My husband and I both enjoy it a lot, and today he suggested we spend some time drawing together tonight. While I fixed dinner he picked out a few reference photos from characterdesigns.com and had them ready to go on our TV. We plonked down in front of the TV with our drawing supplies and then it was go time!

figure drawing in art graf watercolor graphice

I tried a slightly new medium today. I have had this tiny box of art graf watercolor graphite for many months now, that I haven't had an opportunity to try. I decided to give it a try today, and I am happy with the results.

figure drawing in art graf watercolor

I enjoy it so much, I really must do it more often!