Thursday, May 19, 2011

In the Studio - May 18, 2011

This is what I worked on in the studio today.

drawing #8 WIP - Tap Dance Series
©2011 Stacy L. Rowan

Actually this was today's starting point. After taking this scan, I put in about 3 hours working mostly on darkening the pant leg on the left and toning down some of the highlights on the right pant leg.

It has been a while since I did a graphite drawing. Graphite work takes me to an interesting place. On one hand adding the layers of graphite to build up the values is an almost meditative practice. On the other hand I sometimes get frustrated because building the darker values is such a slow process. So I flip back and forth between feeling very peaceful and zen-like, and feeling impatient and anxious to make progress.

Knowing this I normally start with the darkest areas because once I have them in the rest of the drawing goes pretty quickly.

3 comments:

Anita said...

Oooh more tap - I love this series! can't wait to see more!

Jennifer Rose said...

graphite can be so tedious sometimes, but the fabric here looks lovely :D really great highlights :)

Stacy said...

Thanks Anita! I am so glad other people enjoy this series because I don't think I could stop making tap dance drawings if I tried. :D

Thanks Jennifer! It's funny how sometimes it feels meditative to me and other times it feels tedious. It has more to do with whatever else is going on in my life than with the graphite. If I have a lot of other things to get done that day it leans toward tedious, if I have a pretty open schedule then it's relaxing.