Studio Art- Timed pencil skeleton drawing

Tamsin Degges

Reflection

Contrast: I think the contrast in my piece shows a lot in the shadows and behind the ribs and eye sockets. After I finished drawing all the details I went back because it looked a little flat. I went back with a 6B pencil which helped me a lot to get the really dark parts in the arms, legs, eyes, and ribs and I think it brought the drawing to life.

Composition: I was really concerned at first with the position the skeleton was standing because of the way his knee was bent and in front of his pelvis. I think however it made for a much interesting drawing because normally I would just choose something that looks easier with no limbs overlapping but I think with the knee on the stool and across the pelvis, it challenged me and was actually really fun to draw.

Process: How I went about drawing this piece was first I drew 8 sections on my paper which gave me a better idea of how my proportions should be. And then I took my pencil and matched it up with the angles of the body parts of the skeleton and then used those angles to draw messy circles that match the size and angles. I then began to look at the shapes of the ribs and head and libs to start and define the general lines that I would later go into with the actual shapes of the bones. After having the outlines of each bone I started to do my shading starting with the 2B pencil but then using darker ones to get deeper shadows.

Shape: The shapes in the skeleton vary a lot with thinner bones and the curve of the pelvis and skull.

Line variation: In my piece I feel like I have a lot of texture in my lines. There are a lot of lines of shading and clothing folds in the hat which is one of my favorite parts of this piece. Also the sharper pattern of lines next to each other in the plant with the light and dark green show the shadow of the light on the plant.


Struggles:
My biggest struggle was probably trying to make sure that the individual bones dont get drowned out by the messy lines from the circles from before. For example, in the leg bones I had a hard tine defining the lines and the shadows so that you could tell that they were shadows and not just dull.