Tiger at Ubuntu Wildlife

The Ubuntu Wildlife Sanctuary https://ubuntuwild.com/ is home to large cats that have been rescued from zoological parks and private collections that have become distressed. The animals are too old or disabled to be introduced to the wild and so require care for their remaining life span. Ubuntu provide a suitable facility.

I have been spending some time on the farm providing assistance in the development of educational walking trails. In my visits there is an opportunity to photograph the animals. On my last visit I took a picture of a female tiger.  My picture was taken through a tiger proof fence and was not the most photogenic image of a tiger around. I decided to use the photograph to practice a method called planar portraiture.

A friend of mine, Hilary Adams, bought me a subscription to a Domestika online course in planar portraiture. It was a farewell gift when I left Cape Town. I followed the course and decided to test out some of what I learned to capture the tiger image on paper.

My process started by printing the photograph out on A4 paper and then using a light box to transfer the outline onto a clean A4 sheet (See Fig 1 below). I then drew the various planar lines the define the shape or indicate the relative position of various parts of the anatomy.

Fig 1 - A4 planar structure on image outline

Once I had the image outline, I started to transfer the construction onto an A3 sheet of 60gsm paper (See Fig 2 below). This process is usually quite laborious when using the grid method I have described in the past. I found the planar method comparatively quick by comparison, even though it looks more complicated. In practice the planar approach is not complicated at all, it proved quite intuitive one I had the hang of it. Needless to say, I still made mistakes.  

Fig 2 - Scaling up the image from A4 to A3

Notice in the image above that I use a roller ruler, this allows me to rapidly position a line on the A4 page and transfer it to the A3 page. Just make sure both pages are square to one another. Position the roller rule along the line on the A4 page, roll it off the A4 sheet and remove the sheet, then roll the ruler back to the position you want the line and draw it in.

The other critical activity is scaling to make sure the lines are correctly positioned relative to one another. You can do this with a calculator if you like having to keep on typing numbers into a calculator or computer. You can also do it in your head if you are a mental arithmetic adept! It is also possible to do with proportional dividers, but that requires continual adjustments.

I have found the simplest approach is to use a slide rule…yes, it’s very simple. You set the centre rule to the conversion factor and all the actual conversions are there. You look, aided by the slider to guide your eye, for the distance you measured and next to it is the converted or scaled value.

Measurement is critical in art. I used to try to eyeball my images and it does work up to a point. But one art teacher I had many years ago, Walter Rose, said to me that you need to measure everything and continually check your dimensions and how things align. Needless to say I do not always do this as diligently as I should and the result is that the drawing or image goes awry! In the case of the Tiger drawing shown here, the front foot originally extended a significant distance beyond the nose of the Tiger. I had to do a bit of erasing and redrawing to make it look convincing to the eye.

Once the scaled-up outline is complete on the 60gsm A3 sheet I was ready to add details and shading. I keep my outlines for future use, say to produce a watercolour or oil painting on the same scale. In this case I put the sheet on a light-box and overlaid it with 120gsm paper and traced the outline through. The 120gsm sheet provides a better surface for smudging and toning with graphite. I sometimes use heavier paper and paper with more texture which adds to the visual interest of the image. On a previous post this effect can be seen on the different steam engines I have drawn.

Before, I repeat, before, I start creating the 3D effect on my nice mint 120gsm paper some time is set aside for research. I review from my library of art books animal anatomy and in particular the anatomy of the big cats (See Fig 3 below). For this image I carefully noted how the shoulder blades sit on a cat and where the foreleg bones are in relation to the body.

Fig 3 - Sample pages of big cat anatomy

The reference work that most inspires me is a palaeontology book about the evolution of the big cats. What I like are the pencil illustrations by Mauricio Anton. Mauricio is an artist who sets a standard for reconstruction of long gone species and also a very high standard for pencil illustration. Yes, I am a fan.

Finally, several days are spent doing sessions on the work. I started by producing a light grey toned background. To do this use a pencil sharpener and graphite stick, let the shavings fall on the areas to be toned. The rub the shavings around using a piece of tissue paper. Then lightly start drawing in body structure, muscles and bones that are a prominent part of the form. After that add the landmarks on the image, I use the stripes for this and some of the facial features.

Once the lightly drawn image is complete the next step is to progressively increase the tonal range by making the dark areas darker, and darker, and darker. All the time leaving mid toned areas alone once they are dark enough! Areas that need highlights can be created by careful application of the putty-rubber. Highlights were restricted to the spinal area and parts of the legs.

I also used tonal range to bring the nearside and foreground towards the viewer. To do this I make sure the tonal range of these elements is wide, and the more distant parts, for instance the far side legs, are depicted in a tighter range of tones. The result can be seen below (See Fig 4 below).

Fig 4 - Final drawing of Ubuntu Tiger

Anatomy, Aircraft, and Aves.

 Learning Anatomy

In the past few years, I have been trying to develop my skill in the area of figurative drawing and painting. A few copies of great masters’ portraits and efforts of my own were the starting point. I then attended classes of drawing figures that cumulated in coaching by Paul Birchall. The work with Paul took me to another level where I could draw figures from my imagination. The results were OK but can be improved.

A am a friend of an artist, Charlotte Firbank-King, who produces the most fantastic images straight from her imagination. In her paintings people and animals abound in all sorts of natural settings. Er ability to create and most amazing detail in a scene is astounding. One day Charlotte said to me that to improve my figurative and portrait work I would benefit from the study of anatomy.

I have a collection of books on anatomy and figure drawing for artists. I began a process of study following an idea put forward by Loomis in his book ‘Figure Drawing for all its worth’. Loomis suggests taking a diagram showing the various muscles and identify them from suitable sources.

My process begins by selecting a figure from a book on human anatomy published by 3dtotal publishing. They present a photograph of a model and superimposed on the image are the muscles, tendons and bones visible from the surface. I produce a drawing of the image on A3 layout paper (60gsm) and then refer to my various books to attach labels to the various muscles depicted.

So far, I have created two diagrams through this process. I spend about three days to create a diagram. I work for a few hours and then retire to other activity so that the learning points can sink in. Most of what is depicted remains on the drawing not in my head but I am counting on repetition and practice to address that problem. The diagrams below are where this style of work has reached so far.

 

Muscles of the arm and body from the back

Muscles of the body from the front

Aeroplanes

Following the drawing of the Hawker Hart that I describe in a previous post on this blog I repeated the process to create a drawing of an American Biplane, a Boening Stearman. The aircraft was used to train naval aviators in the 1930s and 1940s.

 

Boeing Stearman

Bird photography

One of my hobbies is photography, with mixed results I spend quite a bit of time trying to photograph birds. I recently had the opportunity to photograph a Turaco, locally known as a Knysna Lourie. The bird has striking red wings that are only visible when it flies. Because it lives in forests the main way of getting about for this bird is to hop along branches and then swiftly leap and fly to the next tree. This presents a challenge for the photographer, getting the bird in the frame, focusing, then capturing the backlit image.

My own attempts were not particularly successful. However, there was sufficient detail in the image to be able to create a drawing of the bird and then add colour using coloured pencil. I drew the image on A3 layout paper (60gsm) using Lyra pencils, then added colour using Lyra coloured pencils. The result is presented below. 

Knysna Lourie - pencil drawing with colourd pencil 'wash' over

 

Hawker Hart drawing

 I have a collection of 1:72 scale model aircraft that I have built up over many years. One of these is an Airfix kit I built whilst still at school a very long time ago. The aircraft in question is a biplane built by Hawker in the 1930s and sold to numerous air forces around the world. This particular version is called a Hawker Hart and was operated by the RAF up until the second world war.

Greyscale photograph of Airfix 1:72 scale model

Greyscale photograph selected for the drawing

 My process started by posing and taking a few photographs of the model and from that selection chose one to develop a pencil drawing from. I loaded the photograph into Microsoft PowerPoint and superimposed a grid pattern over it. Then I saved the resulting image as a jpg file which I could load and display in my Samsung Tablet.

Greyscale image with drawing grid superimposed

 

I decided to produce a work on A3 format paper. I loaded a sheet of 60 gsm sketching paper onto a suitable drawing board. In the past to reproduce images using this grid system, I used to draw the grid on the paper first which was a tedious process. With this drawing board I can shift the ruler around and draw or extend lines as needed. I this example each grid line worked out to be 3cm apart to give an image that fitted well in the A3 format. 

Set up to copy the photograph onto an A3 paper sheet

 I use a variety of drawing instruments including a roller rule to keep lines parallel with the structure of the centreline of the aircraft in place, and dividers to ensure that things that are supposed to converge or get smaller with vanishing points do in fact consistently do this. The set square is so I can quickly extend or re draw the vertical grid lines on the paper.

Picture showing some of the drawing instruments used

For most of the process my focus is on structural elements of the aircraft, I used an H2 pencil and putty rubber, to get the various lines in place. Curves and circles are the hardest because of the angle of the aircraft or the particular curves used by the original aircraft designer. Once that process was complete I worked over the drawing with a high carbon B2 Staedtler Mars Lumograph pencil to obtain a dark line that would be visible on a light table or light box.

Image showing use of high carbon pencils to obtain final line drawing

I traced the line drawing from the 60 gsm paper onto a sheet of 200gsm Ashrad sketch paper by placing the new paper over the original on a light box. Once I had captured the line drawing, I very gently shaded the background areas of the image. I started shading with a B4 pencil and progressively strengthened it by moving to B5 and then B6. I shaded by holding the pencil by its top end, farthest from the point as possible, with two fingers. Then I shaded by letting the weight of the pencil do the work, I just brushed it back and forth to cover the paper, the pencil as at a very flat angle for this process to work. I did not worry about over-running onto the aircraft image because I could lift these marks out easily with the putty rubber, the lack of weight means there is no indentation to worry about.

Once I had a light grey tone in the background and a horizon line defined, I tilted it a bit to create a bit of dynamic action on top of the diving attitude of the aircraft, I began shading the aircraft itself. As I went along it became apparent that the background needed to be darker to show up some of the highlights on the aircraft, I returned to shading background areas several times as the drawing progressed, and each time used the putty rubber to recover the highlight areas.

To differentiate the sky from the ground I first rubbed graphite flakes into the paper with tissue, and then worked over it with the pencils as described above. By this time I was shading background areas with very soft pencils up to B9.

The aircraft drawing proceeded by starting with a Lyra B4 pencil and re-working the image progressively with softer pencils up to B9. During this process I refined various curves and circles as best I could to arrive at the final image below.

The completed drawing - a Hawker Hart in flight

 

A new start

A month of disruption has gone by, we moved house from Cape Town to George. The move entailed considerable disruption because we had to put belongings into storage and make the house we were living in ‘saleable’. That is all behind us and we have since then been unpacking – four weeks of unpacking. At last, I have a semblance of order in my art life if nowhere else!

The new house offers a larger workspace, I now have a dedicated art studio to work in any time I like. Here is a photograph of the workspace I am now lucky enough to have to myself. 

 

An aside.

I am reading a small paperback book by Marcus du Sautoy entitled ‘The creativity code’. The book is about artificial intelligence but has some interesting things to say about creativity and art. He discusses art breakthrough works and suggests that they marked a change in artistic fashion or style, or birth of a new genre when they moved to a limited degree away from viewers expectations. The dimensions he mentions are “novelty, unexpectedness, complexity, ambiguity, and the ability to puzzle or confound”. A small departure from the norm in one of these dimensions will take the artwork to the ‘edge’ of acceptability, but heighten its aesthetic value. If the work goes too far it will be disregarded by the viewer. This conceptual movement away from the norm initially arouses interest, but then interest declines as the works become more distant to the norm, the strength of the effect can be mapped as a curve called the ‘Wund curve’.

Drawing – master copies

I have been gifted a course in drawing delivered by an online platform called ‘Domestika’. The assignments so far included drawing a head by copying a drawing by a master. This was the first opportunity I had to ‘do some art’ since the move to George and so I was quite excited. I chose to produce a drawing based on an original silverpoint produced by Leonardo da Vinci in 1480. The result is shown below along with the original it is based on.

 

Silverpoint drawing by da Vinci

Graphite copy of da Vinci silverpoint drawn on A3 paper using Lyra 4B to 8B

Subtractive drawing

I am ‘on a roll’, having produced the drawing above, I thought it would be interesting to try to repeat the exercise using a subtractive method. To this end I first rubbed some 6B graphite shavings into a sheet of drawing paper to create a (kind of) uniform grey foundation to work on. I then began my drawing, based on another silverpoint by Leonardo. I quickly realized that if the base layer is 6B, I would need to use something like an 8B pencil to make a mark I could see.

As the drawing progressed it became apparent that the kneadable putty rubber would be an important drawing instrument. The method forces the artist to work with highlights and then tone them down again once they are created. I found it a challenging approach. The result is quite striking as can be seen in the image below along with the silverpoint image it was based on. 

Silverpoint by da Vinci

My subtractive copy using graphite

 

Painting and pencils

I have been preoccupied with the sale of our house and the purchase of a new one, which has more room for art studios and space for art materials. The new house is located in a small town in the country, there are forests and mountains withing a few hundred metres of the front door, so lots of inspirational sources on the doorstep.

The burning World

I developed a watercolour from the earlier pencil drawing of the topic. This is an A3 size painting rendered with W&N Cotman watercolours. 

 

 

 

Keeping my eye in

After completing the watercolour, the distraction of moving has prevented me from undertaking any new projects. I have spent some time drawing on A4 scrap paper. Inspired by some images of motorbikes I saw on DeviantArt, I tried my hand at something. I tried drawing a bike and rider using a small plastic kit I have. A week later I had another 'go' without any reference material to 'prop me up'. The profile drawing below is the result. 

The technology of motorbikes is not an area I am familiar with so perhaps a better result would have been forthcoming with a posed model or photograph. However, my aim is to create not copy, so this was intended as a start. 

A week later I did a few more drawings of human heads, again with no reference material. Then, tired of packing stuff in boxes for the move, I took time out to try a figure drawing to see if the teaching of Paul Birchall had sunk in or evaporated. I think the image below indicates something has sunk in, though there is room for improvement - always :-) 

The idea of this sketch was to check my ability to draw a figure. I also wanted to create something dynamic and try to indicate movement, a point in time. Here the dancer has just completed a move, throwing her body and head forwards whilst raising her right leg, perhaps in preparation for the next move......

I was reading an article in imagineFX by Keith Gurney on the topic of composition. Keith suggests that the starting point of a drawing or image is the idea you are trying to communicate, one then works from that central idea outwards to create the image and its context. In this example I am still mucking about with anatomy issues, once they are resolved perhaps I can do more with this image or its descendants.