Sunday 8 January 2012

The Study of Drapery – Part 1


Long Study of Drapery - 1
6 January 2012
Graphite Pencil on Paper
46cm x 33cm (18" x 13")

I am two weeks into Section 11 of the Natural Way to Draw and on Friday, I finished the first long study of drapery - you are looking at 4 hours of drawing.

The instructions for the exercise result in a stylised representation. For each fold, you have to decide what is the top, what are the sides and what is the bottom. The top of each fold you leave white, the sides you shade light grey and the bottom you shade dark grey. Where one fold is underneath another, you shade the fabric a very dark grey where it emerges from under the other fold.

The objective of the exercise is to explore and understand the structures of the interacting folds – not to create an accurately rendered drawing. Without this understanding, it would be easy to fool yourself by creating a lovely shaded drawing that looks very attractive and detailed, but is really quite inaccurate.

I’m glad there are two long studies in Section 11. I’ve learnt a lot from this exercise and I am looking forward to starting a 6-hour drawing this week. The main change I will make to my approach is to spend more time drawing the shapes of the folds before starting to shade them. In the 4-hour drawing, I started shading too early because I was losing track of what was the top, side and bottom of the intricate folds at the top of the fabric. Next time I am going to fight the urge to shade and if necessary, write t, s and b on the drawing to help keep track of things. I am also going to take more care over shading the folds as they emerge from under each other.

The fabric I am using is probably too lightweight. Some of the folds it creates are very delicate – the tops are very thin.  Before I start the next exercise, I am going to try to obtain a heavier fabric, which should create more rounded folds.

The setup for the exercise provided a challenge for me. It might be a problem for anyone that doesn’t have a studio and doesn’t want to cover their house in holes. The instructions are to tack the fabric to the wall. There are two long studies and in parallel, you might do up to 50 short studies- that is a lot of tack holes. My solution is to use suction cup hooks and fold back clips. This works quite well as long as you stick the suction cups to glass. They only seem to stick for a couple of minutes on wood or plaster, but they stick like glue to glass - this arrangement in the window has been up for over two week.

My Drapery Setup

7 comments:

  1. Hi Mark!

    Soon I'll be finishing the 10th schedule of Nicolaides, and I'm wondering - just how heavy (or heavIER, if you compare it to the example on the photo) should the fabric for 11th schedule be? Can you give any advice?

    Best regards,
    Michael

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Michael,

      Good to hear from you. I’m glad you are making progress. The fabric in the photograph on this post is too light, but it just about works. Ideally, you want a material that creates well defined elegant folds. If the cloth is too light, it will hang too flat – the folds will be too rounded and indistinct. If it is too heavy, it won’t create folds unless you have a huge piece of material and a massive room to hang it in. The student drawing of drapery (page 116 in my copy) shows the types of shapes you want it to create.

      All the best,

      Mark

      Delete
    2. Hi Mark!

      Yes, I think I see what you mean. The cloth I've got doesn't quite make folds - it almost "breaks" into some kind of angular structure. Too light. So, looks like I'm going to buy some for drapery drawing.

      Regarding progress - yes, I've definitely made some, though not quite the type I'd expected. So far, Nicolaides is teaching me how to really SEE the model. Every time I say to myself "Well, you can't get more attentive than THIS", he adds another dimension. Somewhere on your blog I've already read something along these lines :)

      And BTW, I've started a blog - http://tnwtd.livejournal.com/ Feel free to drop by. I'm using it to force myself to write about the book regularly. It's in Russian, though, so the only useful thing is the photos of exercises :)

      Best regards, Michael

      Delete
    3. HI Michael,

      I don’t know whether I wrote about it, but I definitely had the same experience as you. There were a number of times when I suddenly realised my focus on a subject was more intense than anything I had previously experienced.

      Thanks for sharing the link to your blog. It was really interesting to see your photos of the exercises. I like your studies for the modelled drawing in watercolour. The bust on (http://tnwtd.livejournal.com/15913.html) is particularly three dimensional. Did you find a good source of tube watercolours?

      Cheers,

      Mark

      Delete
    4. Hi Mark,

      Nicolaides has already pretty much changed the way how I view the world. It has become 3-dimensional and VERY interesting. Even mundane things (gates, doors, etc.) are noteworthy now, and visual art (of all kinds - architecture, paintings etc.) is simply breathtaking. Before I started the book, I had read a lot of comments like "it has changed the way I view art". I think now I'm experiencing this "change" myself :) And I haven't even done the half of the book!

      I'm glad that you like my modelled watercolours (the bust you like is 2 hours modelled drawing, hence the unusual refinement 0 I simply spent more time doing it) - it gives me confidence that I'm doing the exercise correctly. Lately, I'm frequently in doubt regarding the exercises. Nicolaides gets more confusing with every page.

      Regarding watercolours - yup, I've bought several old (at least 25 years old - "made in USSR") watercolour tube sets. I've managed to find a few colour combinations, so the sets will last some time, especially considering that the bulk of watercolour exercises is behind me. My fear of running through all my supplies of tubes in a blink of an eye was completely ungrounded.

      Best regards,
      Michael

      Delete
    5. Hi Michael,

      Nicolaides completely changed the way I look at the world and art. As well as developing a greater appreciation and understanding of excellent technique, I enjoy more artistic styles and have more insight into what an artist may be exploring in a piece.

      I agree the instructions for the exercises become more open to interpretation as the book proceeds. Possibly the vagueness is due to Nicolaides trusting/wanting the student to work out what they need to focus on next.

      All the best,

      Mark

      Delete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete