Welcome to another installment of my artist apprentice diary.

This time is the first occasion in which I face the shading. The exercise was still lace and silhouette, but I could not contain myself and I cast a couple of shy shadows. The teacher explained how to apply shading with a thicker carbon and told me to try it, without fear. So after having the figure more or less fitted I experimented with the lights and the shadows.

As the professor explained to me, this time the exercise became complicated again. This time the figure had more complexity due to having the arm raised and the distances between the different elements, which apparently are very deceptive.

I have to confess that every time I find it more difficult to start the first lines of the drawings. Finding the correct distances and angles of the axes is crucial for the drawing to be right or wrong.

In this case the fight was quite intense at the beginning and I had to erase the axles several times, because although they seemed correct, when I put the drawing next to the model and watched it from a distance I realized that it was wrong. So in order to reach the first silhouette he had erased the master lines several times.

Once the first sketch was reached, things got complicated, because the proportions were still wrong. Especially the relationship between shoulders and neck and the width of the thorax and hips.

To correct the width or heights the only way is to erase and redraw. This process of starting from scratch I had to do it three times, because I could not represent the correct proportions.

I redrew the knot of the fabric again, which I had made too small. And I started to mark the borders between light and shadow. It was one of the difficulties of this drawing. Contrary to what happened with the previous drawing *, in which the lines were very defined, in this the forms were very soft and I could not draw them with defined lines. That's when I decided to venture to try shading. After my teacher gave me some basic instructions I started the process. Unfortunately the proportions were still wrong. The thorax was too short, but I decided to leave it like that, because to fix it was to go back and I preferred to experiment with the volumes.

I began to shade timidly, with fear, although the professor urged me to stain the paper with decision.

I listened to him and the truth is that I enjoyed it immensely. I have discovered that I like this part more than drawing the contours. It's amazing to see how the volume and shapes start to come out of the paper, as if by magic.

The variations were beginning to be subtle, but they clearly marked the difference. At this point I returned to teach the drawing to the teacher. He told me that he should shade the left side even more, that he was not afraid to stain. The drawing still lacked volume and balance between lights and shadows. I continued shading with greater security.

The truth is that the result is very different and clearly better than the previous phase. As I say, the drawing still had serious problems of proportions, but I am delighted with the result. The truth is that I never thought I would be able to draw something like that.

This new activity is providing me very funny and enjoyable moments.

Thank you for joining me on this wonderful path.

Here you can find the previous days:
Day #1 | Day #2 | Day #3 | Day #4 | Day #5 | Day #6 | Day #7

An original post by @trenz