The Clothed Figure

The clothed figure can be just as reveiling as the naked pose.  The folds and pleats of fabric add dimension and form and I particularly like the John  Waterhouse painting of the women water carriers which show this to perfection. I like the way the folds in clothing accentuate the anatomy of the women.  John Waterhouse (1849 -1917) was an English painter who entered the Royal Academy in 1870.  A lot of his work came from classical and ancient history. He was also a member of the Pre Raphallite movement which is also called Romanticism and these were a group to poets and artists dedicated to portraying the classical stories and paintings in a romantic wistful way.

hpttp://www.all-art.org/neoclasscism/waterhouse1.html

             The Danaides 1904 Oil on Canvas Bridgeman Education library

The first exercise in this section deals with fabric with line and form. I was asked to throw a piece of clothing over a chair to make folded layers of fabric and draw a two 15 minute drawings in line only followed by small drawings emphasising the areas of light and shade. My first attempt was in soft pencils.

The second attempt was in charcoal and I did find this exerise difficult at first and then just tried to look for shapes and keep it simple.

I also found isolating tone and light quite difficult so I decided to crumple up some paper and draw by looking at shapes only and this was immensely helpful.

The next task was to draw a person seated and relax using hatching to create form so that the fabric and form appear to have weight.

I think that I have achieved what I set out to do and that was to show that there was structure underneath the the clothing.  The chin isn't in proportion but I was focusing on the body as a whole and I enjoyed this exercise and I had to think hard about the hatching but as I got going with it, it seemed to become easier. At first it was a challenge to create volumn to the folds but this is where doing the crumpled paper exercise helped as I started to look for shapes and to start with it didn't make much sense but as I continued I could see where the darks in the fold should be.