This weekend I am at a pre-conference workshop with Daniel Maidman, at the Figurative Art Conference and Expo. Daniel is someone whose work I have admired for years. It was such a privilege to be able to actually draw with him and have him critique my work.

Here are some of my drawings from the first day.

As Daniel pointed out, ‘These are for practice, not art’. It was good advice to just pick one thing to work on for the day (for me, it was value transitions). He also recommended I look at the work of Jennifer Balkan and Anders Zorn. I took the reference to Zorn as a compliment, as I’ve always been inspired by Zorn paintings and drawings.

Each of these poses was 20 mins. Long enough to accomplish something, but not long enough to try and finish everything.

Some other key points I picked up:

– Start with the block-in (outline), then create the shadow map. Erase the shadow map as you render tones.

– Don’t rush it. Better to leave something unstated than to just try to fill in.

– Tone from left-to-right or right-to-left, depending on handedness

– Strokes are defined by (in order of significance)

1. Handedness
2. Avoiding smearing
3. Form

– Along form on the edges of core shadow
– Across from in the core shadow

– If you see a large are of cast shadow with a common tone, you aren’t looking close enough. Look for the core shadow and reflected light to see to the sub forms.

– Work dark to light (usually).

– Areas of pigmentation (nipples, penis), just use the pencil (rather than including the white prismacolor) to keep the tonal range down.

– Art is being decisive about what you are stating and the audience can take it or leave it. When you discover that something isn’t correct anatomically, you get to decide if you care.

– Work from life if you can. Don’t work from photographs for at least ten years. Then you know what distortions there are and how to avoid them.