Practice: Drawing

Well, I did practice though not water colors.  Other things ate up my time today, but I am determined that I will do some artwork at least 3 times a week (remember? resolutions have to be specific and attainable).  Having lost sight of the time, I chose simple pencil drawing as my practice medium today.  

Recently I have been tearing photographs out of magazines and newspaper for practice subjects.  And I have found that many of the photos that attract my attention are those of people.  I've never had much instruction with figure drawing although I did have one semester in an art school class with nude models quite some time ago.  I don't remember actually being taught anything about the human anatomy at that time - things like ratios weren't covered.  Anyway, I have been intrigued with sports and dance photos since they show bodies in motion.

Here's today's photo from the Times Union Preview section in an article about Jacob's Pillow.  What I would like you to see are the negative spaces, the empty spaces, in this picture: between the two arms, between the left arm and left leg, and between the left leg and the right leg.

Now look at those same three spaces in my drawing.  See the differences?

In my need to adapt the subject to my paper after I had set the figure incorrectly (I should have begun the drawing with the figure all the way to the left side in order to have enough room), I lowered the left arm without even realizing I had done so.  Then, by looking at the second negative space you can really see how the lack of careful planning through off the beauty of the dancer's line.  Then because that was incorrect the third negative space is off, too.

Note to self, take time to see, time to think, and even time to use register marks if necessary before drawing again.