Here’s Another Recent Russian Master Copy

"My talent is such that no undertaking, however vast in size... has ever surpassed my courage." -Peter Paul Rubens

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Greetings fellow Steemians!

In today’s post I thought I’d share another recent and small (5” x 7”) Russian master copy I finished in spirit of continuing my inspiration expressed in another post not too long ago. This was also finished in my leather bound sketchbook I previously mentioned earlier.

In this particular drawing, I would say I felt very confident in the preliminary construction (block in) of the head. Like a lot of Russian academic drawings, the solid construction and placement of planes and subordinate forms is strongly emphasized. In the “locking in” of this armature drawing, it made for the slow progression of breaking down the smaller forms much easier, instead of having to mostly rely on form drawing (window shading).

Once the block in was set in place, I then began to mass in the darks and preserving the lights, keeping in mind as to not be afraid in pushing them darker than they appear as staring into a white surface at this stage of the drawing can produce illusory effects. The values tend to appear darker than they really are. There comes a time in the work when things begin to settle and one can isolate values and smaller forms with greater precision.

Now that the darks/shadow shapes are established, from all the edges where the shadow ends and the light begins (the core shadow), I then began to turn form (remember always turn ACROSS the forms and not along them) into the lights. While extending these mid tones, I paid special attention in preserving those lights like I mentioned earlier. I also wanted to make sure to keep those edges and smaller forms in and around the eyes well defined as to keep the viewer’s eyes moving in and around the drawing.

Please feel free to let me know what you think?

Thanks for reading Everyone!

-James Hansen
https://jameszenartist.weebly.com/