Starting on October 10, I have been working on a recreation of an "old master's" work of art. I chose Raphael's Phrygian Sibyl. Below is a progress report based on what I did each day. 10/10: Today I just started working on the project, drawing the grid lines that I placed on the original photo and cutting it to the right size. I began proportioning parts of the clothing and face although it is barely visible in the photo. I am already having trouble figuring out the face shape in the grid. 10/22: I continued working on the overall shapes today, drawing in some lines to show the arms and hands, some fabric overlapping lines, and some parts of the face. I'm pretty pleased with how the right arm looks overall and the fabric leading into that arm. I feel like I'm struggling with getting the left hand right and I've found that when drawing the fabric sometimes I forget which lines connect which leads to a difficult time matching the original. I definitely need to rework the face and I may try to focus on the body and do that at the end. 11/2: I definitely have not gotten to spend as much time on this drawing as I would have hoped, I did go in for one brief lunch session and was able to lay in some lines for the fabric under the right arm and across.Today in class we realized there was not much time left so I abandoned my original plan of toning the paper and went ahead in with the conté. I got frustrated with the conté mainly because I was not able to get the parallel thin lines Raphael used, but at the end of class Mrs. Mosley demonstrated how to use a knife to sharpen it into a fine point which will definitely be useful. I think it looks pretty good! I'm still tinkering with the face but I decided that it was time to start on the mark making (the focus of the project) but I definitely was hesitating when drawing because it is unerasable which may have led to a few shaky lines. I also realized the neck was completely gone, but I had gone already in with the conté so it was too late to fix it. 11/5: Ok today was the last studio day and I focused on continuing to work with the conté to create value and round out the form. I was extremely happy with how the arm turned out, I think I was able to adequately recreate Raphael's lines to show small details like the muscles and the elbow joint. Once again though, creating parallel lines was difficult for me. I have decided that I like the look of conté. Last minute, I began to add conté to the face which is not looking great so far. 11/6: At home, I finished up the project, starting with adding conté to the part of the fabric that helped to accentuate the form (to the right of the right arm). I was able to get the face the way I wanted and darkened values to increase contrast. Overall, I am pleased with how this project turned out. If I were to do it again, unsurprisingly I would've spent more time in order to be able to completely finish, but luckily this was a practice for our self portraits so it is ok to not be completely finished. In addition, I would have toned the paper but just ran out of time and I think that might have added to the illusion that it was Raphael's drawing. I had always felt like I struggled with hatching and using lines to show value but through this process, I have really improved and have a better understanding as to how that happens. I also need to double check my proportions especially with the grid because the top of her head was basically cut off. I enjoyed working with conté as it was my first experience with it and am really glad I learned how to sharpen it into a finer tip (I'm looking into buying a fine tip conté pencil for my self portrait). Considering the work I did in conté was only over three days, I am proud of how it turned out.
2 Comments
MM
11/9/2018 04:56:02 am
What an amazing pay-by-play of this process! Well done! Don't forget the side-by-side comparison of your drawing and the original.
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MM
11/11/2018 05:08:30 pm
You know I meant "play-by-play"!!!
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