GARY WEISS - FIGURE DRAWING SIMPLIFIED

And, finally, when you have done all of the cylinders with curved lines to create volume, softened the contour lines about the cylinders, you begin to create your cast and form shadows. The cast shadows are the hard edge shadows that soften as they move away from the object casting the shadow and the form shadows are SOFT. This was Gary's five minute demo last week to his class on shadows...

GARY WEISS - FIGURE DRAWING SIMPLIFIED

Note how to line up with tracheal notch with other parts of torso - to umbilicus, nipples. And, the clavicles (collar bones).

GARY WEISS - FIGURE DRAWING SIMPLIFIED

Drawing reveals cyliner of upper arm, and use of circles and adjoining lines to indicate foreshortening. Rectangles indicate hand, mid-hand and fingers.

GARY WEISS - FIGURE DRAWING SIMPLIFIED

Note the cylinder of the chest with curved lines to indicate volume. Two circles indicate breasts, a triangle, the pubic area, and the beginning of cylinder of upper legs. Chin rests on chest.

GARY WEISS - FIGURE DRAWING SIMPLIFIED

Note cylinder of foot, curved lines revealing form. Rectangle suggest toes and curved rectangle for ankle joint with cut-out for lateral malleolus(protruding bone on outside of ankle joint).

GARY WEISS - FIGURE DRAWING SIMPLIFIED

Cylinders used for both upper and lower legs and direction of curved lines suggesting volume. Added knee joint and calf contour lines.

GARY WEISS - FIGURE DRAWING SIMPLIFIED

Again, with the use of geometric shapes, Gary creates a finger. Lower image of a pointing finger, although not easily seen, has a larger circle at the base of the finger and smaller circles at the middle and tip of the finger. Lines connect the outer edge of the two circles creating foreshortening. (Connecting lines are softened and reflect contour lines.)

GARY WEISS - FIGURE DRAWING SIMPLIFIED

I have been studying with Gary Weiss, a teacher at the school, over the past several months and find his teaching style easy to understand with the use of geometry shapes to make the figure make sense. The right image shows the upper and lower arm as two cylindrical shapes with curves in the same direction indicating the volume of the structure. The left image has contour lines used to indicate the curves of the muscle bellies. Note how simple the shape of the hand is made and that it reads "hand".

MARGARET DYER - VALUE STUDY VS. LOCAL COLOR STUDY

Anne Meinert gets it right with a value study (on right) and then applies value principles with color (left).

MARGARET DYER DAY TWO STUDY

Note the volume that Sunny Walker has captured in this models figure with light, midtone, and dark values...

MARGARET DYER'S DAY ONE DEMO

LOOK at the beautiful color values that Margaret has used to create a wonderful study !!!

STUDENT AT WORK - MARGARET DYER WORKSHOP

Suzanne Jackson hard at work studying the model in her intial phase of the sketch.

MARGARET DYER MODEL IN NEW STUDIO

One of the three models the school had each of the three days in the new studio for larger participant workshops. Room for everyone!

MARGARET DYER WITH MODEL

Margaret Dyer discussing the day's expectations with one of our models, Irene.

MARGARET DYER PASTEL WORKSHOP

Get it right before you begin. Use loose grid to get your bearings and or a simple stick for relative measurements.