One of the subjects I turn to when I'm lacking inspiration as to what to sketch is statues, whether to depict historical events, religious or notable figures in churches, commemorative or public art, there's plenty to choose from and with a multitude of realistic representational works they can be useful for practicing drawing the human figure, and I always need the practice. There is, in Salisbury Cathedral, a beautiful sculpture of St Michael, archangel and the field commander of the Army of God, resplendent with sword and shield and battle armour stood atop a defeated serpent. I wanted to focus in on the statue with some of the ironwork around it.
Well, that was my plan. I have stated that I will share my sketches, good and bad, and today's exercise didn't go so well....
I started by measuring up the overall figure, sketching a rough pose. Using the same mechanical pencil as before but a smaller sketchbook than previously.
I had to sketch and re-sketch the figure several times, I just couldn't seem to get the lines where I wanted them, a breakdown between my drawing hand and my brain.
The sketch doesn't look too bad on the face of it but I know the measurements are a little off, enough to make adding further detail to the sketch frustrating and not worthwhile without re-drawing the proportions more accurately. I know the raised hand is weakly drawn, but no matter how many times I re-draw it it just doesn't get any better.
At this stage my frustration has resulted in pressing too hard on the paper and so to erase the lines proves pointless. I think there were several reasons why this didn't go so well today: I'm tired, I found it irritating that I had to 'squeeze' the sketch onto the smaller paper (obviously then I'm happier working on a larger scale), I was too lazy to take the time to plot and measure the figure out properly and on reflection I think I might have ended up with the head a little big, thus throwing off all the other measuring points.
Of course the main reason could be that I need a lot more practice to improve my figure drawing skills!!
