Felix D'Eon

Diary ~ Academy Drawing Demonstration #1

May, 2006

 

Pete came by today to model for an Academy - this is a sort of drawing done in the 19th and late 18th centuries, usually of the male nude, as a drawing exercise to perfect one's drawing ability. While it was originaly meant as student practice, in the hands of some master's it became a profound and finished work of art in its own right. i have continued that tradition in my own studio, usually doing one Academy a week. The following is the process for the latest Academy of Pete.

I decided before he came that I wanted to draw him in the straw hat I bought before leaving for Tennessee and sandals, in order to set up some sort of narrative. I have a large shell collection, and Pete came up with the pose - of himself listening to a seashell - himself. I loved the very first pose he did right away, so I started the drawing without the usual preliminaries of gesture drawings. In the photo above, the drawing is seen after the first half hour. I used the distance from the top of his hat to his neck as one unit, and with that as a measurement figured out how big to make the figure to fit on the page, and then laid him out in very soft tones.

At this point, (above) I have started to figure out the angles of his body - I realized that his right shoulder is higher than his left, for example, and measured the width of his waist. I also started to lay out the shadow side. In the photo below, I first drew in his contours and then darkened the shadow side - afterwords, I took a rag and rubbed over the whole drawing, which created a mid tone. I could then come back with an eraser to lay in my light side. Unfortunately, the next several photographs came out blurry, so I can't show you the process of this step by step - the next photograph is several levels later.

Here (below), I have laid in the light side with a very light pink pastel, and put in the highlights with a white conte crayon. I then used a stumping stick (a tightly compressed stick made of paper) to rub the dark and light sides to a smooth finish. The torso is starting to achieve a finished look. I also laid in a dark shadow next to the light side of his body. This serves as contrast, to pop him out.

Below, the drawing is almost finished, after a very long day (at this point, Pete has been modeling for about 6 hours). I concentrated on the legs, but at the same time keep on coming back to already finished portions, in order to refine and perfect them.

Below is the finished drawing! I added a small seashell at his feet to place the figure in a context, and to help make sence of the shell in his hands, which has mostly obscured. I spent the last hour or so going back over the figure with my stumping tools, smothing and refining, and carefully observing the model so as to get all the shadows just right.

Here you can see me at work on the drawing, close to its finish.

And finally, here is Pete, checking out the drawing at the end of the evening

The drawing will be photographed and available soon for purchase. Please feel free to write if you have any questions.