PART FOUR – PROJECT 5 – THE MOVING FIGURE

Exercise 1 Single Moving Figure

I did very quick line sketches of husband making breakfast in my A4 sketchbook . Very hard to keep up with movement. I could hardly look at the paper at all. All I could do was make quick marks – but I think this does show movement of the figure. This reminded me of the images I’d seen by the artist my tutor had suggested I research, Jenny Saville.

Below. Two figures on yellow paper, Charcoal. both 62cm x 47cm

I was quite pleased with the two figures below. Though photographing yellow paper for the blog hasn’t come out well. I found some old black and white footage, online (Shutterstock), of a girl dancing to the Charleston, probably back in the 1920s. I freeze-framed the footage until I came to frames that showed movement, but were clear to see and jotted the lines of movement down with charcoal. I gave a suggestion of form of the legs and clothing, but didn’t go in to detail – this was quite a pleasing, transient effect. I just hinted at the direction of the beaded skirt. The shadow of the shoe, not meeting the gound, showed the foot was still moving. I drew a few directional lines around the figure to hint at direction.

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Exercise 2 – Groups of Figures

I found some film of people piling onto a train on London Underground. I made very quick charcoal sketch in my sketchbook to get a feel of the direction and movement of people.

I liked the crowd movement this sketch suggested, so I decided to draw a bigger version on brown paper, 48cm x 60cm, using charcoal and pastel

I was quite pleased with this. I kept the figures vague, hinting at clothes and expressions, but showing heads being squashed in the doorways of the trains. I smudged some blurry lines in the pastel on the left of the picture to hint at the direction of the crowd.

I quite enjoyed the moving figure exercises. I like that they are transient and fleeting and I can hint and suggest form and action. I drew a few more examples of movement, below. Images taken from freeze framing film.

Above: 60cm x 50cm Charcoal on brown paper

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Perhaps I should do some more work with transient forms – I enjoyed this.