BA4 Contextual Studies: Creating Coherent Worlds (& Life Drawing) #04

Drawing Class

I am putting these here under my contextual studies blog posts because we were focusing on how to portray narrative within our artwork which is something similar to what we have been working on during our various CS classes so I felt it was appropriate to show them here. 

As a group we decided that this guy was having a rough time with his love interest and that he had probably been left by the love of his life and was now feeling depressed having found a shoe in his house which was reminding him of her. 

#1

In narrative sketch 1 we see the man sitting on a chair, alone, holding the shoe of his lover. His position is uncomfortable and slouchy to represent how he has “given up”. There is a large canister on the floor suggesting her is going to drink something bad (alcohol or poison perhaps?), this is signified by the mug sitting there. 

 

#2

In narrative sketch 2 we see the man has carelessly thrown the shoe away to the floor and is now drinking the substance from the container which is believable because the container has seen movement, it is lying on the floor now. We figured he wouldn’t care if he spilt it or knocked it over and this suggested more in terms of showing narrative that he had an interaction with it. 

#3

Here is narrative sketch 3 and we can see that the man has passed out from the substance he was drinking. Is he dead though? The shoe is back in his hand, does this suggest he did the wrong thing but it was too late? The mug is now collapsed but still in contact with his hand to show he fell whilst drinking (the cup and hand weren't too visible from the angle I was drawing). 

This is the first life drawing session where I have been happy with the results and proud to post them on my blog. #2 has a bigger head than I meant to give him but I am happy with the rest of the proportions. #1 is a tad too wide and I couldn’t quite get his feet right but ultimately it looks correct. #3 is my favourite but it was the one I thought would be hardest. The shading under the chin makes your eye read the image in a more 3 dimensional way, it makes you believe he is looking upwards. I am also really happy with how the legs look as well as the rough shape of the feet. I think the proportions are best in this sketch.  

So, how does this link into my contextual studies project? Well, it was a project about constructing a believable world and story around this guy in 3 drawings. In other words, we were creating a coherent narrative AND world for our improvised story. It was a really fun experience.