Tag: nude

The original is titled “A male nude with proportions indicated” I however, left off the proportions, so now it is just a male nude. The drawing by Michelangelo is in the Royal Collection in merry ole’ England. The original was done in two shades of red chalk. I did mine in two shades of pencil. I guess I could use chalk but it has that ‘scratchy’ feel to it that I do not care for. Of course graphite pencil is not incredibly smooth. If you find that interesting, then I am speechless. But I need to finish this blog post so I will continue.

“What are those writing issues?”

I am writing this post in the ‘word counter.net’ online application. It gives me important information about my writing. For instance, up to this point, it should have taken you about 32 seconds to read this. If you were speaking it out loud for some strange reason, then it would have taken you about 50 seconds. Fascinating stuff indeed. It also shows that I am writing at the 7 to 8th grade level. And believe it or not it is doing this all for FREE! It keeps reminding me that I should upgrade to the application ‘Grammerly’ which checks for grammar, spelling issues and plagiarism. I can even do a brief check for free. Let’s do that now, shall we. It says I have, 2 issues of grammar, 4 spelling mistakes, 12 punctuation “errors” (which in my writing style is actually pretty darn good) and 8 additional writing issues. What are those writing issues? I would have to pay to find out. But since I’ve been humiliated already I think I will leave it there. On the plus side, they did not find any problems of plagiarism and I consider that to be a big win!

Graphite pencil figure drawing after Michelangelo Buonaratti. The original drawing is described as “A nude young man, to front, looking to right, beckoning”. The sketch by Michelangelo can be found at The British Museum. Once again I must emphasize that it is from THE British Museum and not just any run of the mill British Museum. For example the Dog Collar Museum in North Yorkshire. You know the one in Leeds Castle. Moving on, although I drew my copy in pencil, the original was done in pen and not one but two shades of brown ink. Both shades of brown ink are known as iron gall ink. When I say ‘known’. I mean ‘known’ by people other than me. So I had to research it.

“Iron salt is salt with iron in it.”

Are you ready for some fancy book learning? Iron gall ink is made from iron salts and tannic acids. Iron salt is salt with iron in it. That should help clear things up. The tannic acid came from vegetables. Iron Gall ink was used in Europe from the 400s and is still being used today. It can be found on Amazon as well as various pen supply stores. It cannot be found at Michaels Craft Stores or Hobby Lobby “home of oily paint and signs with religious expressions”. If your the handy type, there is a recipe to make your own at instructables.com

So now I should write something about Michelangelo. From what I understand he would often destroy his drawings so people wouldn’t know how he developed his figures. According to artist and biographer, Giorgio Vasari said that Michelangelo burned his drawings “so that no one should see the labors he endured and the ways he tested his genius, and lest he should appear less than perfect.” Out of the thousands he made there are only a few hundred still with us today.