Week 20 - Nude Figure on Black Paper

This one was trully a challenge... It took everything I knew about shading and rendering and turned it inside out. It also forced me to rely less on line and more on shading, which is something I really need to learn to do. So I might practice more using white pastel on dark paper from now on.

I began by sketching the shapes. My first mistake was outlining too much, which made it dificult to make the shapes three dimensional afterwards. On the other hand, I am really happy with how the leg pointing forward came out. By breaking it down into simple shapes and properly measuring the model's proportions, I managed to achieve quite accurate foreshortening, which is something I've been struggling with until now. So this was really a win.

I had problems with the foreshortening in the other leg though, since the angle was weird and pretty complicated, but with some indications and help it turned out well. I started shading, trying to go from the lightest areas to the darkest and also erasing the outlines I had created previously.

The hands were really simple and flat, so I added more detail and midtones by using my putty rubber. I worked changing between the pastel, the putty rubber and the normal rubber to create light parts and then modify the dark areas by carving into them with the erasers. I also added more of the background in order to make the darker shadows of the model stand out.

After shading the whole body I went on to add the hair and work more on the drappery to have a solid background to contrast the figure to.

I then tried to work on the face, but at some point it started to look scary and grotesque, due to the amount of detail I was trying to fit in such a small space. 

Following the advice I had been given, I made the face more generic and simplified it to its basic planes. It immediately started looking better. I also darkened some of the shadows and lightened some of the highlights in order to add some more contrast and make the figure stand out.

This is the final work:

I will look at some references in order to add further detail to the hands.

It took a while for me to get the hang of this process as it was completely different of what I was used to: instead of going from the darkest shadows to the highlights, I had to go from lightest parts to the shadow. It was a challenge, but it made me work more with the shading rather than with lines, which is something I really want to practice more.

After the feedback, I added more tonal variation and built up the white more. I added more details and darkened the left shoulder. There were also too many repetitive elements in the torso, so I fixed that and added more consistent shadows on the drapes.