As you may know, we had our second daughter, Arabella, four weeks ago. Of course, I haven’t had much time at the easel. My hands have been full with cuddles, feeding, and a few sleepless nights. But I have been able to do a touch of drawing. Mostly rough sketches of Arabella, often with her nestled in one arm.
I have been dabbling with academic figure drawing on the side for the last few years. It is a nice change from my typical impressionist landscape paintings. One thing I realized when drawing Arabella is how many of the rules of thumb, rhythms, and guidelines you learn in academic figure drawing don’t neatly apply when it comes to an infant. For example, in an adult, the lips are generally around one-third up from the bottom of the chin. But that proportion doesn’t work when drawing an infant whose jaw is in the early stages of development.
So, while drawing Arabella, I had to do away with all my preconceived ideas and fall back to good-old observation. That is, I had to simply observe Arabella and draw what I saw. It has been quite a freeing experience. It’s like going back to what we did as children. No rules or guidelines or proportions. Just observe and draw.
It made me realize that, whilst these rules, rhythms, and guidelines are awfully helpful, you must be careful not to use them as a crutch. Observation is a skill that must be constantly trained and refined. If you stop using it in favor of a more formulaic approach, it will atrophy over time. And you might not notice until you’re confronted with a subject that doesn’t fit with your expectations, like an infant.
Here are some photos:
I also went back through my sketchbook and found this sketch of Elora I did in 2021.
On a separate note, tomorrow we will be doing a short promotion on our Landscape Painting Masterclass, so keep an eye out for that email if you are interested.
Regards
Dan Scott
Draw Paint Academy
