Ballerina #1

 

 

Ballerina sketch #1, soon to be out of two.

 

 

 

{8x10 pencil drawing}

 

 Ok, there are a lot of things I do not specifically love about this one, but then there are some specific elements I do lol. C'est la vie!

I started on the second ballerina which will be comparable in size and lighting so as to be displayed either as a pair, or along each side of the 11x14 pointe shoes. I then want to do a larger ballerina to be displayed alone.

I am reminding myself repeatedly that the purpose of this little ballet project of mine is really to learn, so imperfections and mistakes are to be expected and learned from rather than cast in shame.

One of the primary reasons I have held off on pursuing art has been because of my perfectionism, so trying to leave that at the door.

Being able to draw out many different ballerinas should allow me to learn from each sketch and apply my new knowledge to the next. Hopefully after I complete all six drawings I will be more comfortable with this subject at least.

 

 

 Just for fun, I also took a few pictures throughout the sketching process just to document how everything developed and changed :)


#1.

#2.

This step really was just adding more shading and dimension to the figure, and changing some of the proportions.

#3.

I completed the tutu, the ballerina's face, and applied some background shading to emphasize the highlights, and added a shadow.

#4.

The last change I made was how I grounded her. I first thought it would be easy to do a simple shadow, but if I followed the light it really should have been very far to the right which would have unbalanced everything. So instead I tried just creating part of the stage floor which allowed me to keep the overall light balanced. I definitely favor this way of grounding the figures.

 

 C'est Fini!