Camilleon's Sketchbook

[Camilleon]

Ok, it's been a while, so I figured I better make an appearance. First off, stuff from my sketchbook--working mostly from Stephen Rogers Peck's "Atlas of Human Anatomy for the Artist". Unfortunately, tourist season is off to an early start, and the crowds have been keeping me away from my dear sculpture at the Art Institute.


Hands, as always, pose a bit of a challenge.


I realized that I have trouble with the upper arm area, so I've been looking at its muscle structure.






I drew the first figure from Artsy Poses and then tried to recreate the pose out of my head (not looking at the first sketch).


Did ok, but I think her arms look a little large compared to the rest of her body, but I think that was the case with drawing based on the photo, too!

And a couple doodles, trying to keep good anatomy in mind...although I cheated with the mermaid since I didn't have to draw any legs!





And now I'd like to share some pics of a work in progress. No, I did not do any thumbnails, but after I had taken the reference photo, I did 6 or 7 loose drawings (all terrible, so I'll spare you) and finally a "tight drawing" as Justin Gerard might call it (although his line work is a million times better than anything I might attempt):







And now to transfer what I've learned from the drawing to the canvas:




Pencil drawing outlined in ink, so it won't smear under the first layer of oil paint.


First wash of color in burnt umber.






It was at about this point that I was like, "Wow, this looks really wrong..." and solicited Dan's and Alex Negrea's opinion. They were kind enough to put me on the right track. The funny thing was that I realized I actually already knew the basic perspective rules that they were telling me, but it totally didn't occur to me to apply them to this painting until they mentioned it! Why does my brain work this way???


With the corrections and some more detail...

Thanks for looking! Any feedback is appreciated!