Week 5: Distortion study: Skeleton

 This weeks study was of a still life of a skeleton lying on a chair with two pieces of reflective paper at its head and side.

The medium I first worked with was coloured paper and soft pastels, one white for the main work and one dark yellow for doing the hard shadows. The angle I choose to work from gives plenty to work with. It provides a great foreshortening, perspective and a good reflection in the reflective paper at the skeleton's head. The point of interest for me was the ribs of the skeleton and there for I put my focus on that area and didn't draw the rest of the skeleton.

The second piece I finished from the skeleton still life is made with charcoal. I chose to work with charcoal so that I didn't need to think about colours and could put my focus on the anatomy and the values.
In difference from the first work I here chose an angle that shows the skull in profile. I here wanted to capture the anatomy of mainly the skull and neck and shoulder. I worked fairly quick here, I believe that this was made in less than 15 minutes, sadly I forgot to write down the proper time spent on this work.

I'm happy with the final result and the level of details. The point of interest lies here in the skull and neck. The bones in the neck was done rather quick since it is so easily happened to get stuck in details where there are so much do draw. Some of my helplines for the head is still visible, which was a choice I made. I wanted the look of old anatomy studies from forgotten sketchbooks from the 18th century when the world of anatomy was still to be explored.