We were given the option of joining life drawing sessions in college, a couple of hours on a weekly basis. Over the sessions the tutor taught us various methods of drawing a model.
The first was a measured drawing using a ruler to capture the proportions of the model. First we had to find a centre line, something which we could start to map out points of face from so everything was to scale. I had a side perspective of the model, so I found it quite difficult to fix on a line on the face, however once key features, such as the eyes and ears were drawn out, it became easier to mark out the rest of the features and angles of the face and neck - The lines on the piece show where we measured with the ruler, I labelled some of the first lines as it quickly started to get confusing which mark and line represented which part of the face.
Another week we used charcoal and pastel to draw the model. The medium meant these were faster drawings and appeared more abstract. For this type of drawing we didn't use rulers to measure proportion, we were told instead to work out proportions from other parts of the body. Starting from the head, you would know the lower leg measured 'two-heads'. With this, you could start building up the drawing, then you could check angles in the similar way, from other parts of the drawing. Once the body was drawn out, you looked for lighter and darker areas to add shade to the drawing using the pastel.
