Boardwalk Showers part 7

Well, we got that snow storm on Wednesday night as predicted, dumping about 8 inches around here by Thursday morning. Most times that would seem like a lot, but after that Christmas blizzard it's not very challenging or impressive. The streets were cleared, and school was declared open, so I dug myself out, got ready for class, and off I went. No complaints here- I really don't like having to lose class meetings and the way the weather has been shaping up around here, it's good to get in any meetings that we can. However, it meant that I didn't get back to work on the new block for a while. Put in a few minutes here and there in recent days, with some sustained sketching time this afternoon.

The next step was to work on the two figures in the upper left corner, showering behind curtains. I had both models who came to the Studio in recent weeks pose behind a makeshift shower curtain (a thin bed sheet fixed to have shower curtain type folds in it) and I did sketches and took photos of the results. Above is a sketch from the first such session. I had expected to see a slightly distorted figure through the not quite translucent sheet, but what I got was a combination of cast shadows (from a spotlight over the model's head) and views of the model. It's an interesting effect and my first thought was to draw it as such. However, in the end I decided at that small scale, it would probably be confusing for the viewer, and I opted to keep the same silhouettes as I had before, and just mark a few simple shadow patterns over the figures and throw some curtain folds over everything. The sketches below look different from each other, but they are just to give me the basic information that I need for cutting.

The other thing that I did today was to start putting in some of the surface architectural detail- tile patterns on the floor and walls. My perspective system is more intuitive than scientific (I don't use common vanishing points) and as I worked my way down and across I found I had to redraw the lockers and bench in the right side panel to work better with the way the angles of the existing walls. The tile lines will likely be reworked a bit, but this first pass through the process is a useful starting point. Below is the current state of the whole block.