Chapter 7: Bodies and Movement

 

Activity 5.7.1: Drawing of a body in proportions

P 1: Pencil drawing in my sketchbook. I used a wooden articulated figure to help get the proportions right. A few years ago I was given such a figure, but it reminds me too much of a Barbie doll.

 

Activity 5.7.2: Making an articulated card figure

	P 2: This is my little figure. The body parts are joined by a thread and a tiny pearl on the front and back side. It moves very well! Now it hangs over my workplace like a Jumping Jack.
P 3	P 4
P 5	P 6

 

Activity 5.7.3 A variety of poses

 

	P 7 Trying out my little figure (I should give it a name). The joints move so lightly that it is not easy to hold it down for drawing. But this makes for little variations, so the drawings do not become too schematic.
	P 8 The pages of my sketchbook are old printed copies. covered with gesso.
	P 9 A Yoga class. Not really a crowd.
	P 10 Runners are much more of a crowd. I did not realize until after I had drawn this page that the runners are in profile, but my figure faces me. So this should not work. But it does.
The grey letters were already on the page under the gesso. I lined them and added more letters with stencils from Module 2.
	P 11 Painted with gouache on 130 g paper. The striped background suggests a stadium.
	P 12 Cutout from an old map, photographed on a white sheet of paper.
	P 13 Fell runners. The cutout was glued on a calendar picture and then washed with ochre gouache, the background with blue gouache.
	P 14 The runners in my sketchbook. The lines in P 12 and 13 gave me the idea to draw ink  lines across the bodies. I wanted the wavy lines to add shape to the bodies. The background was coloured with gouache.
	P 14 This is the starting point of an exploration on the computer. I wanted to vary the size of the figures and worked with Paint. I first erased the lines of the letters and some areas of the drawing. Then I copied the image in different sizes in a new file.
The erased areas can be filled with colour, an accidental discovery.
	P 15 Adding a second colour
	P 16 Variation of P 15 on Picasa. Suddenly these interesting colours emerged.
	P 17 I think the contrast of pale and intense colour works well here.
	P 18 Another contrast of strong colours.
	P 19 Suddenly this really is a crowd – a Marathon race. This version appears even more crowded than the coloured ones. I like the combination of textured figures/ background and line drawings.
This might be good to try with coloured and patterned papers,	or a starting point for textile work.
	P 20 As a last trial (this can become addictive) I combined small, middle and larger sizes of the initial drawing to create an image suggesting greater space. But it is too much like three lines. Perhaps I will work more on it another time.