I was trying to think of ways I could simplify my drawings to focus less on the tiny details and more on the overall form of the horse. I then thought back to an exercise we did in art school where we were looking at the effects of light and how it can be captured.

The tutor set up the life drawing pose by turning off all the lights, rolling down the blinds and shining one single light source onto the model to create definite light and dark areas for us to see clearly. We were then told to draw the shapes created by the dark parts and to block them in. What we came up with was a simplified and rather abstracted version of the subject and it taught us how form is created by the tones of light falling upon it. I've found a very informative website by UK artist, Will Kemp, which goes into detail about the effects of light in drawing. I would like to experiment with value over the coming days and see where it takes me. It's an area I feel I need to improve on, especially in my painting.

For today's piece I used pen, graphite, charcoal and pastel on gessoed watercolour paper. After my opinions about watercolour paper yesterday I thought I'd give it another go and see if I could fall in love with it again 😎 I blocked in the darker values of the horse with charcoal and let the colour of the paper come through for the lighter values. I already feel liberated and free from detail. 👍