When I created the series of drawing reference photos that I ultimately called "morning sun", because they were made using the light of the morning sun, I actually had a personal favorite. I liked the way it turned out. And, to be honest, it probably made me look better than I really do, which no doubt played into why I liked it. Doug Hoppes, apparently also saw something, which he indicated was the "highlighting", in the photo that he liked as potential drawing reference and created this drawing using it. I like this drawing because, even much more so that the original reference photo, it makes me look much better than I really do. I'm really not much on ego, I don't think, but seeing a drawing of me that looks like this makes me feel really good about myself, and it's a something that I greatly appreciate an artist's unique ability to make me see and feel.
It seems like most of the models of the cyberspace-based drawing group that I participate with got the bug at roughly the same time to create praying poses. There were several things that seemed to act as catalyst for that. With so many potential praying poses available, I was particularly pleased that Doug selected one of mine to draw from. I continue to be impressed with the detail that Doug captures in his drawings. Doug seems to have an excellent ability to capture this detail through the understanding of lighting and use of shading. This drawing seems to demonstrate this lighting capturing aspect. I particularly like the way Doug's shading captures the shadow that is being casted back onto the figure by the hands. The detail and realism created by the shading in the legs and shoulders also stands out to me.
Doug called this drawing "Ben Laying Down". He indicated that he wanted to do some experimenting with it and try some new things. I suspect this is quite a challenging pose. I'm impressed by the feeling that this drawing creates and that with even with Doug's experimenting, what seems to be his hallmark of capturing light and shadow through shading is plainly evident.
This drawing was part of a group project that was approached differently from most. It was a more open-ended project where only the theme was directed. The theme was innocence.
For some related background information that I always find interesting, the photo that this drawing was based on was taken while I was on a very fun and exciting hiking adventure, over a couple of days. The particular place was the destination of a hike. This spot is a destination for a reason as it is a delightfully cool location in an otherwise very hot place, and is obviously at the end of a fairly strenuous hike. What I find almost funny, is that this photo is actually just a "set-up" photo. It was taken by self-timer, and when I do that, I often take a "test" shot just to make sure things are showing up in the frame as I expect. In this case, it was a quick test shot for just that, as I had planned to take a photo of our hiking group. So, it was really a just because/accident photo, but I included it with my collection of potential drawing reference photos and find it curious and amazing that Doug made out of it what he did.
I was very inspired and impressed by the words that Doug wrote in association with or as an explanation of this drawing, so I'd like to re-quote them here: "Okay... got some time to do a quick drawing. Was thinking of the innocence idea and what it meant to me. I ended up taking one of Ben's vacation pictures and using that as the photo reference (Thanks, Ben! Great location!)."
"Innocence: typically I associate it with babies, etc... then I started thinking... what did I think of it really? Well, for me, innocence is the state of being where you just are. You aren't playing any games to manipulate people or get what you want, etc... you just are. Then I was thinking of my outdoor travels and realized that the outdoors represent some sort of innocence. The outdoors just is.. there are no "evil" storms or trees or rocks. They just exist. We, as humans, embody the outdoors with our own perceptions of "innocence" or evil."
"Then I started thinking of people. The human body is innocent, in itself. How we perceive people and react to people is based on our own perceptions or based on acts of the person."
"Therefore, my drawing represent the innocence of nature and people (no face, so it represents no one in particular) just existing together."
Doug words spoke volumes, beautiful volumes to me, seemingly directly to my heart and seemed to reflect my own very internalized emotions extremely well. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to feel this thought and emotion as expressed by Doug both in word and image. It came at a time when I desperately needed it. Thanks Doug.
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