Bargue Drawing Tutorial: Plate Five, Stage Five, Refining The Schematic

Bargue plate 5 - second schematic

Finally, after ten or eleven hours work across several sessions, I've got this plate to the stage of the second schematic drawing.

At this stage, all the main points which define the drawing have been placed and joined. I can now start to get some idea of how close I'm getting with my copy. So far, it doesn't look too bad, but I'm sure that as I move to the next stage, refining the outline, I'll find lots of mistakes.

Getting to this stage from the last one has been a little less frustrating. Getting the first set of points in seems to take the most work. I think that this is because there's very little to relate the points to as they go in, and they tend to be some distance away from each other. For this stage, there is almost always a few points close to the one I'm trying to get, and this makes it easier to judge the relationships by eye. The measuring doesn't have to be quite as accurate, since corrections can often be more easily made by eye.

Bargue plate 5 - first tone block

This stage was not without it's difficulties though.

This picture shows the laying out of the first major tone block, at the base of the foot. The little crosses show where the edges of the tone block will go.

This part of the drawing is complicated by the fact that the outlines of the shape are not as clearly defined as the main outline. The tone blocks tend to have soft edges, graduating into the lights. Not having any guidance on how to approach this, I chose points on the plate where I decided that the most obvious edge of the tone block was, and measured to that.

Once the points had been chosen, marking them onto the drawing is easier. Much more now, I'm starting to find points by relating their positions to other, already existing points, using horizontal and vertical construction lines found using the plumb line. It strikes me that this is a method which will translate more readily to drawing in the real world, and also has the advantage that it involves more judging of relationships and less reliance on pure measuring. I want to get away from measuring as much as I can (without losing accuracy of course) because it seems to me that one of the main lessons of the Bargue plates, eye training, will be more effectively learned this way.

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4 comments

Sebastian said:

Great site! Thanks for all the inspirational sharing.

I have to ask though, why spend eleven hours running around with a plumb line and thread to copy a drawing? To me it feels like one is not likely to learn eyeballing and hand sketching from this. Wouldnt it be better to spend this time trying to copy it without tools by free sketching, and go through a handfull of tries and mistakes?

I will try both methods and see what works for me.

Thanks.

Posted: 2012-03-20 13:59:58

Paul said:

Hi Sebastian, thanks for popping in and commenting.

hehe, you may well be right! I was interested in learning to sight size 'the right way' when I was working on this, but of course there is no right way, and anyway that helps you progress is good.

That said though, pushing for this level of accuracy is hard going, even with a plumb line to help you lay out the initial block-in.

Eye-balling you certainly will learn from this method. Much still has to be judged by eye. It's like lifting heavy weights for your accuracy. Hand sketching not so much perhaps, but even there I think there's probably a cross over of skills.

I think perhaps the most valuable skill I stretched with this practice was my ability to concentrate and focus for longer periods than I was used to. Not to be sniffed at either :-)

I'd be really interested to hear what your thoughts are if you do try both approaches. Please let me know.

Posted: 2012-03-20 20:37:50

Devi said:

I was wondering this also but can see that by doing it so precisely a few times would show you where you tend to distort either by length or height and help you to be aware. In another course they have you train your eye by first striking the contour and then learning to correct which supposedly does the same thing. Each time you practice you improve. I have noticed substantial improvement for myself by doing that as well as copying Bargue even if I am doing it incorrectly compared to the way you teach. I am so ever grateful for you telling us your process and egging us to do it as right as possible to get the benefit not just say we did it... I hope I will be able to slow down now and get more engaged. I did buy better paper to motivate me.

Posted: 2013-04-06 22:28:59

Paul said:

That sounds like a very good way to practice Devi. It might not be sight size, but sight size certainly isn't the on;y way to practice, just a good way.

The only thing that makes a practice method correct or incorrect is whether or not it helps you improve.

Any exercise that involves judging and then correcting will be powerful way to improve your accuracy I think.

Posted: 2013-04-08 07:17:26


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