Peter's Sketchbook

[Peter]

Hey peter! You've been doing these Watts studies for quite a while haven't you? I think Watts seems like a really good program, and they have good things to teach. But I wonder if it's really working for you. 

Watt's drawing approach is based on finding rhythms connecting the forms, which you do. But you tend to focus on really small things and get preoccupied with the same lines the instructors draw. I think it's preventing you from really seeing what's right in front of you.

For example, you tend to have really bumpy contour lines because you're trying to articulate every muscle. It's good that you can see that detailed anatomy, but let's face it. It's not part of the big impression of the drawing. You're shading really sharply the model's individual abdominal muscles, even though that's something that is so subtle it would have to be at a really late refinement stage. Meanwhile some proportions are a little off, like the right leg and hand feel shrunken. You've also got a core shadow between the pecs which isn't really there. I'm not trying to nitpick it, I've just observed that you focus on certain things which I don't think are helping and I'm wondering if that's a result of your long Watts training. Approaching things from a different perspective might not be a bad idea.

Take with a grain of salt of course.

Not a perfect copy of the photo at all, but I see the picture more like this (outline less curvy and inner forms subdued):

Thanks for pointing those things out to me Joe. I was aware of a few of the points you made such as my proportions which I struggle alot with in my figure drawings, I thought drawing/measuring more would help with that and gradually overtime that would correct itself.

I still have a hard time with the gesture phase of the drawing, sometimes it's really clear to me on say a compressed pose, but when the gesture is very subtle, as you said, I get caught up in the little details so to speak.

Yh I wasn't sure with the abs on that one, I knew they were in halftone when looking at the ref but when I squinted it appeared to be apart of the darks to me.

Think I first started with the online portion of Watts just under 2 years ago and the live streaming just over a year ago. i thought my best approach moving forward would be to take more live streaming classes as I can ask questions and get feedback since there is nowhere near me to train tradionally apart from one guy who studied in florence, but he only does workshops a few times a year.

Your probably right about taking a different approach but not really sure where to begin.