Architectural Sculpture - P,G & E building Part 2

Today I'm sketching the other side of the architectural sculpture on the Pacific Gas and Electric Company's building in San Francisco. Yesterday I struggled with the sketch on several different levels; drawing the human form because my knowledge of anatomy needs work, getting a better likeness on the face and getting the hands to look realistic. I had a disadvantage in that the photo was not of the best quality but still, with practice, I could do better. I also ran out of sketchbook space because I'd drawn the head too big. So today I've started by roughly sketching out the portion of the sculpture that I want to draw. to make sure I can fit it on the page.

Next I've plotted out the main shadows to help me create the form of the figure. Using a mechanical pencil with 0.5mm lead I build light layers of cross-hatching lines, trying to mimic the shapes of the shadows on the body.

The light on the sculpture is coming from many different directions; the sculpture is set back into the building but the stone is light in colour and reflects the light as well as light reflected by the buildings, cars etc in front of the sculpture. This reflected and diffused light makes it a little harder to see the shadows clearly rather than if there was only one light source but that's the challenge of sketching from a photo taken in this kind of light.

 

By roughly shading in the shapes of the shadows on the figure I start to get a better feel for the form and the sketch starts to look a bit more solid. He's by no means perfect but it's a better sketch than yesterday, so hopefully I'm making progress!

 

After adding in some sketchy detail to the surrounding building it becomes apparent that the figure is too even in tonal values and doesn't stand out enough. I'm realising more and more that the quality of the photo combined with the evident weathering on the sculpture is making it harder to distinguish detail on the figure, and with my need for more practice at figure drawing this possibly wasn't the best resource material I could have chosen!

 

After picking out the darker shadows on the figure and laying down more pencil in those areas the sculptured figure starts to look a bit more solid and fitting in with its surroundings. I'm going to leave it at this stage and focus more on anatomy than sculptured figures, I need to refresh and boost my knowledge, but on the whole I'm fairly happy with the sketch.

Architectural Sculpture - P,G & E building

A while back when I was on vacation in San Francisco I photographed a lot of the architectural sculpture that adorns the city's buildings and in particular the Pacific Gas and Electric Company's building. So when I was browsing back through my holiday snaps I came across these figures which caught my eye, although I'm not sure the photo does them justice, and chose the one on the left for today's sketch. I've already noted previously that I need more practice drawing figures and heads from different angles and as the angle is from below I thought this would make a good exercise.

The photo I used was not the best reference material but I thought the subject was worth using a little artistic license to achieve a reasonable sketch. I started with the head which I drew too small and had to re-sketch it a little bigger. Unfortunately I ended up with the head being too big but I'll get to that later.

 

The shadows were the most visible detail on the photo so I decided to plot out the features using the shadow shapes first; basically I focus on the outline of the shapes the shadows make and draw these instead of the outline for, say, the eyes.

I continued that process until I had a rough plan of the features.

I sketched using just a mechanical pencil at this point. The effect this had was to limit the range of tonal values I could achieve from light to dark which can make the drawing appear a little flat with not much depth. But often when I have a sketchbook to hand I don't have a range of drawing materials, usually just the mechanical pencil or a Biro pen, so it's worth practicing with these tools to improve my skills, enabling me to capture what I see realistically or however I intend to represent it..

There's a fair bit of weathering and discolouration on the sculpture which makes it hard to see the detail, but my skills are lacking when it comes to sketching stone-carved hair.

Rather than just sketching the figure on its own I decided to work outwards and fill in the surrounding detail. Using reference points around the head I was able to outline the arm, which was foreshortened so I had to take care to get the length, thickness and angle right. Often, to help myself see if it is right, I'll draw a line around the limb as if I'm cutting a cross-section out and that enables me to see more easily the direction the limb is following.

I built up the darker shades by using hatching and cross-hatching lines and then blending more lines into the darkest parts to create the form. The neck is not quite right and I think it's because of the twist of the neck, I just couldn't adequately represent the muscle as it twisted. I need more practice with anatomy!

The arm is bunched up as the right hand rests on top of the left, and the view from underneath the sculpture makes the elbow look bigger in surface than it would normally look. I have a tendency to let my brain rule my eyesight and reduce what I see to match what I think I expect to see and so I have to look and look again to remind myself that the arm at that point is thicker than normal. I also struggle to draw hands with any great skill, it's always been my weak point and even though these took a long time and I'm still not happy with them.

Next I concentrated on the stonework around the sculpture and, laying a sheet of clean paper over the sketch so as not to smudge it, I turned the sketchbook almost upside down to draw the curves of the stone blocks. I did this because, for me, it is easier to draw a curve rising upwards away from me than trying to get my hand to curve downwards and turn in on itself. I'll often turn the sketchbook to make it easier to draw a curve; there's no point making things harder than they have to be!

 

I used the pencil in light sweeping motions to sketch the lines that create the shading of the stonework. Although the stonework is light in comparison to parts of the sculpture I needed to eradicate the white from the paper and find the right tone to make the stonework look as it it's behind the sculpture.

I added a little pen to darken around the eyes and face as it looked a little flat, but I'm not sure that I've improved it at all. Because I initially sketched the head a little larger it resulted in my not being able to fit much if the sculpture on the sketchpad, so I've only sketched a tiny portion of the overall image. Doh! The likeness of the face to the sculpture isn't as good as I would have liked and I need more practice with anatomy, and in particular hands. Having said all that I'm happy with the form and detail I've achieved with the mechanical pencil in what was a fairly quick sketch.

Statue of St Michael - 2nd time around

After yesterday's disappointing attempt at sketching this statue I decided to have another go today. I didn't want to repeat the approach I tried before, although I did loosely measure out the figure on the paper with some light pencil lines. Instead, rather than outlining the whole drawing, I started with the head and planned to sketch outwards from there, plotting the figure using reference points around the body and the decoration behind.

I used a mechanical pencil with a 0.5mm lead and a black Bic Biro pen. The head is about 2.5cm in height.

I was just as tired as yesterday but must have been paying more attention to the pose of the figure - it was a lot more successful. I definitely need more figure drawing practice, but one thing I have been able to change immediately from yesterday is that the sketch is on a larger sketchbook and although the sketch itself isn't any bigger it does give me more room by putting the sketch further up the page, which seems to work better for me.

 

By checking and re-checking the position of the shoulder and the tip of the wing in relation to the head I'm more able to quickly sketch out the position of the wing and decoration in the background, and so the sketch grows outwards. When looking at angles of edges or lines, such as those in the wings I tend to hold the pencil upright in front of the line I'm trying to draw and tilt the pencil to match the angle. It helps my brain note the angle more clearly and seems to transfer to my hand more accurately when I sketch the line on the paper. I'll repeat this process several times if necessary to get the angle right.

Using the black pen I pick out the shadows by shading in with hatching and cross-hatching techniques and build up the darkest areas layer by layer.

 

Although the marks it makes are permanent you can use a Biro pen a lot like a pencil. With a light pressure you can put down just a little ink on the paper creating a lighter line, and by increasing the pressure or by going over the lines again you can create a darker line and so build shading, form and depth into the sketch. By practicing different mark-making techniques you can build different textures as well as shading. Although I use a Biro pen all the time for quick, notated sketches when sculpting, I'm out of practice in using the pen with more finesse and subtlety, so this is a good opportunity to practice both my figure-drawing and my control over drawing with a pen.

 

By building layers of ink to create darkness and depth there's a lot of ink on the paper and so I always put down a sheet of plain paper over the sketch where my hand sits so that I don't accidentally smudge the ink while it dries. 

When I start on the other wing I will draw light pencil lines across from one wing to the other so that the layers of feathers are the same size and will line up. I always have a problem reading layers like this; as I work down the wing I easily lose track of where I am, which layer I'm on, and can often end up putting in an extra part of the wing, but by drawing the lines across it stops me doing that. If I'm working from a photo I'll often mark up the photo in the same way and even number them to counteract this problem

 

While I'm letting the sketch develop in in outward direction I still take time to look at the overall picture and check the values of light and dark as a whole, otherwise, by focusing on small individual areas at a time, it's easy to put too much of the same dark values in parts of the drawing that aren't supposed to be that dark and then the drawing doesn't read right, the form gets distorted and the overall depth becomes too shallow. Or I'll end up having to go over the whole drawing trying to darken those already dark areas and I don't want the extra work! 

 

But time has beaten me today, so I'll leave the sketch there for now. Although I need a lot more practice I'm happy with the progress I've made since yesterday and that's a good place to stop at.

Statue of St Michael (attempted!)

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!!