Remember Randy Darwall's "dynamic proportion", his favorite key to creating beautiful scarves, the concept that almost made me go more than a little crazy? I still can't define it in words, and I am tentative discussing it, but sometimes I see it around me. I try to make/see movement when I think of ideas/things "dynamic".
Well, Ronette has been telling us to do dynamic contour drawings. Which Margaret thinks is an oxymoron. Thus far, we've been told to draw contours extremely slowly and carefully, and we've practiced blind contours for weeks. And because of our own movements while drawing contours, almost regardless of the models' poses, these drawings tend to be sedate, quiet or still.
I tend to go too fast with contours because when I slow down I loose my sense of proportion and flow, and my lines become jiggly, squiggly and angly, and I prefer to draw lovely flowing lines, especially when drawing the female body.
"Dynamic" relates more easily to gesture drawing. Which is precisely why Ronette is trying to get us to achieve it with contours, I suppose. But it still tastes like Green Tea with Milk, Miss.
3 comments:
agghh! I just typed a long comment and google swallowed it whole! 2nd attempt.
I was going to say I think I'd use the word flowing, rather than dynamic, for the style of drawing you describe.
o.k., now we have communication... I think it takes strength to hold the drawing implement steady enough to draw contours slowly, and then of course you need to concentrate on a clear vision of where the line is going so it doesn't wander?
I haven't done drawing like this for half a lifetime. Good for you, sticking at the classes, there's nothing like this where I live.
Oh, not again.... But glad you persevered, Dot.
Re. dynamic contours, I asked Ronette because I was so puzzled. And others asked to clarify if we were still drawing contours.
Ronette's answer was, she wanted contrast in the drawings. So... thick and thin, dark and light, I assume, because I assume we were still drawing slowly.
Ronette also insists if we do enough blind contours, we start to get the feel of the paper size and that we begin to put things in the right place and get the proportions right. I thought I was just starting to get a sense of the proportion for the first time last week, until she mentioned "dynamic". Most often, with blind contour, if I end up in the same quadrant of the paper as where I started, I'm doing well.
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