Human Figure

Figures in Graphite

| cathmary1030

I’m taking an online class (more precisely, watching streaming demos online) by Peggi Kroll-Roberts who is particularly known for her beach photos of human figures. The class is about value structures to show the form of the human figure: the lights and darks.

Effectively, this is a notan. You start with 2 values and then move to 2 darks, 1 light or 2 lights, 1 dark. And then you move to color.

My next step here would be to paint in black and white, then to move to 3 values, and finally to color — using colors mapped to the values.

In fact, Laurel Hart, in her 2007 book Putting People in your Paintings (on p. 23) even suggests you even go ahead and paint over your penciled-in shadows if you prefer. You can erase the pencil later.

After Steve Strode… After Peggi Kroll-Roberts (Copying a master)

| cathmary1030

I recently purchased the June 2019 of Leisure Painter which had an article by Steve Strode about the basics of acrylics. He suggests you model good painters, and gives an example in the magazine of his painting based off of Peggi Kroll-Roberts‘ style.

This is the first figure I’ve ever painted, and my goal was 1) just to do one, and 2) was trying to focus on using minimal brush strokes — just to boldly attempt it, in other words.