September - Week 2

Written 21/09/2025

Sketches based on her work

So, I have been VERY behind this month - eek! In my lukewarm defense I have had several busy weekends in a row, but that isn't really an excuse as they were things booked in advance that I had plenty of warning for. I guess everything starting back up was a bit distracting? Regardless, I FINALLY managed to get some drawing done. Here are the sketches I did based on her artworks:

Six felt tip sketches based on Marjorie Miller's artworks, with notes

Commonalities between all of these pices I noticed were the exagerated proportions (very long) and the backs are very swayed (to emphasise this perhaps?). The figures are always off centre, and a few have a secondary subject who often has caught the attention of the primary subject. There is also a lot of 'verticality' (not sure if that is a term?), the tree branches are VERY 'straight up', I assume because these are protrait paintings.

Specific artwork I will be focusing on

Queen Of The Night, 1931.

Skinny woman wearing silver dress and barefoot walkin g a large black dog in the night. The background is a silhouette of many trees.

Why this one?

I will say, that this is going to be more a case of doing something in her STYLE rather than specifically taking inspiration from one painting. HOWEVER, I do think this piece will be a particular inspiration to me due to the colour scheme - mostly black and grey (due to what I have decided my subject matter will be - but I will be going into that more in my next blog post ;P)

Sketches based on specific artwork

This month, I decided to do a single sketch based on the whole artwork and then did some drawings based on certain parts that I thought needed a bit more focus.

Here is the sketch:

Pencil drawing of Queen of the Night by Marjorie Miller

A few things stick out to me, mainly that doing super exagerated proportions and poses is VERY hard. I thought I had but comparing it to the original you can see that my subject is nowhere near as skinny - she's softer with more of a bust and behind! Need to work on drawing gangly people! Also, I actually didn't notice the birds in the original until I zoomed in on my laptop - they were very well hidden! I also need to be more 'forceful' with the 'verticality' I think to make the 'dramatic' look that Marjorie Miller's work has. (The dog I think I pretty much nailed weirdly, I don't even draw animals that much! Maybe that is why, so I was actually LOOKING at the dog rather than 'filling in the gaps' which I think I did for the woman).

Here are the 'components':

A pencil profile portrait of a blonde woman with her hair swooped back
Just focusing on the face, I could make it longer like it is in the original - the eye is still hard to work out since it isn't very big in the original.
A pencil sketch of a body that has a heavily swayed back
This helped me get a better 'jist' of the body - I'm not sure if this pose is anatomically possible (ignore my wonky anatomy)
A pencil sketch of a leg that is seemingly in motion with a slightly twisted in foot
This helped me with the postioning of the foot. A lot of contortion all around!

I think doing these helped me with 'understanding' this piece more than doing two copies with one in watercolour (I hope!), I will admit part of it was that I couldn't be bothered to get my watercolour paint out XD. Still, I now need to make up for lost time and get onto 'Week 3' pronto!!