I was really happy. The way that happiness brings you to tears. The most happiest person in the world.... when I was drawing them. But why it was such a good felling to draw those portraits?
I discovered that 'halfway' feeling, that was a boost that made me so happy. It is about keeping my concentration on the work and on the model at the same time, but truly on none of them exactly, but being between them both. It is a bit abstract feeling, true. It is about expressing the rhythm and contrast, establishing the balance, what took me completely, blew me away from this world, made me to breathe with the painting.
Spring is coming, it is time to start preparing canvas for my new paintings. It is time to start again. I'm writing these post to analize, to reflect myself. To see what I have learned years ago and what I was searching for. To ask myself am I searching the same thing right now and how can I express it. And to hear your comments, it can be mostly helpful.
These are my first drawings, made on the Academy of Art. Although they were among first, it is easy to recognize my first attempt, search for contrast and expression.
If I compare this drawing with one drawn before the Academy (the one on the right side, with purple frame) ...
.. it is visible great improvement (on the left one) in the line living more freely.
If you look at the left drawing, at that line on the nose or chin, it is thicker, it needed to be that way to separate the nose from the face, chin from the neck. Drawing on the left is little bit stiff in its appearance, looking like a doll, though has some contrast, has no rhythm and is boring to me now as then when I made it. The drawing on the left is more vivid in its overall appearance.
Here is another drawing of the same old lady from a different angle:
Again a close up view, a face:
I used those thinner and thicker lines for the same cause as in the drawing shown before. I fell in love in those lines, and later that feeling draw me to expression, which I'll show you in some of my further stories.
For now let's look on another drawing of a young lady model. ..
I did some contrasts on it, but still didn't manage to draw strength in this work, to express a passion. I needed more practice.
At the end I'll show you one another drawing before the Academy of Art.
It is visible here how I needed those auxiliary lines not to mess up with proportions of the face. Also I payed too much attention on the details, all at once. Ears are not that important for the portrait. I'm not saying that they don't have to be drawn, but here they have the same importance as eyes, mouth, and nose. There is no presence of rhythm at all. I had not enough knowledge to draw more freely at that early beginning. But later, with practice, with finding that 'halfway' I was talking at the beginning of the post, everything changed. ..
To be continued...
@andrijana