Monday 9 February 2015

Trying to draw moving people

I went to the ice rink and drew some of the people I saw there learning to skate.
Obviously this is a different skill altogether, because they move all the time!
The result was that I had to use very few lines, and also that most of the page is filled with partial figures.




I had to draw very quickly indeed in order to get even one line down to describe the shapes. I tried drawing without looking at the page at all (middle figure). I thought the toddler with the huge helmet and a support looked funny. With the girl skating backwards I tried to capture the look of intense concentration in her unfocussed eyes, surrounded by her fake fur hood.

By the second page, I was trying more to get the shape of the person from where I was sitting, rather than the detail. That meant that in some places there were blocks of shading or only the wrinkles in the trousers. The teacher had a
distinctive and surprisingly still posture, with one foot off the ice and her hands behind her back. The figure on the left is the only one that has much feeling of movement. I drew it very fast with a sweeping motion.

Lastly, I drew a boy in a seat in front of me who was taking off his skates and talking to his brother at the same time. Again, it was tricky to get his head and hands right when he kept moving them! I rather liked the way the boot took over and became huge, as that was the centre of attention.

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