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| Mother and daughter. |
I have posted before about drawing in cafes.You can see some examples
here. It is a challenge to draw someone quickly and to get at the essence of a posture before they change it. And they will change it-quite quickly! I think that practice is helping me get better. Trying to capture this essence gives you some confidence. I'll give some further thoughts as we go. My first thought is that maybe a small intimate cafe is not the best place to draw anonymously. The place where I mostly go is quite large and I sit so that I can observe the queue at the counter.So most of my drawings are back or side views but that is fine because everything helps you to understand the human figure.
All sorts of people come in, from schoolchildren to an old person who uses a walking/shopping frame with wheels. I have noticed that he must be a regular because the staff usually look out for him and someone goes to open the door. And if the staff don't notice it is very likely that a customer will. I have sketched this gentleman on occasions because he is a distinctive personality. He will never know that I may do his portrait some day.
You get a lot of families in the cafe: they may have buggies laden with shopping and maybe they are carrying children. So here follows a selection of drawings of parents with children. At first when I began to draw I didn't visually understand how to describe the way parents hold their children or how the children cling sometimes to their parents: but now I think I'm improving. And I have to say that once you build up a schemata-in Gombrich's sense you will be able to refine it as time and practice go on.So here they are. (All on A5 paper)
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| A mother with her fairly new baby. |
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| Here the child occurs at left and again in its mother's arms.When you look at the child's anatomy on the right you will see that it isn't quite correct and the legs don't quite correspond with the torso. But the drawing does give an impression of the way a mother has to balance herself while holding her daughter. |
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| Father and daughter |
Don't worry about making a finished drawing. Your aim should be to improve your understanding. If your drawing looks good that is an extra to welcome, Your subject will move so don't use your most expensive paper. I sometimes tidy up my work as I go, or perhaps at home. The grey wash is often added later in order to clarify the forms .
