Threadbare Drawing : Process

If you’re with me here, I can only assume you might appreciate the rough, often quite messy, stages of the creation process. This is the sort of thing I can’t share to a general audience, but you are special. <3

1 & 2: Beginning with the reference, this graceful pose appealed to me. I could immediately envision a more complete composition with the addition of flowing cloth draped over the shoulder and held in the other hand.

It's rare that a pose works so well and requires so little adjustment. But a large part of successful art is simply a matter of developing a clear vision and being able to see the potential in your subject.

The rough block-in is pretty straight forward. Once I have the big shapes loosely in place, I can then begin to push and pull. The art is in the editing. 

3 : While finding my way with the fabric, I had the idea to drape it over her head. This was a fun, playful, idea to me because it could function much like a hood, casting a dramatic shadow across her face. This creates a strong focal point and allows for a bit of mystery. 

4 : I toyed around with expanding the composition. Here she would be seen standing upon a dramatic stone outcrop. I do have plans to explore the landscape and include more scenery in the series. In this case, I felt like it was spreading the interest too far from my initial focal point, so i decided against it.

Still, this was a very difficult decision, like a fork in the road—both paths looked perfectly appealing. I may yet come back and try this direction too at some point.

5 : Here I experimented with a subtle change to the position of her arm. She would be holding the fabric gently away from her face. It could work. Again, another perplexing fork in the road. Ultimately I decided that the current pose was more graceful, so I maintained course.

6 : I decided to frame the subject more tightly. The feet and ground were verging on becoming overly busy. If additional information doesn’t make the composition more exciting, then I often find it best to cut it out entirely.

I cleaned up the lines, but only a bit. I like to leave some sketchiness. More care was put into the subtle tones, both in shadow and light.

Since I want her portrait to be the primary focus, I added more contrast of light and shadow values there. The shadow values are left light and airy elsewhere.

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Hi-res version attached.