Life Drawing 10.1.13

15 minute 'slouch.' Water-soluble graphite on painted paper

The first Life Drawing session of the year went very well, I thought. It was great to see everyone again and I'm really pleased that some of the 'new' people have come back. When I got to the centre I was mildly concerned as it was all locked up but my key worked and I got set up so it was all good. I think I left the lights on when I left though so I emailed and apologised. Setting the alarm alarms me.

30 minute pose. Unfinished! Water-soluble graphite on prepared paper

Anyway, onto the drawing! I spent some time the day before preparing paper to draw on so it was good to have that ready. I worked in a mixture of my now favourite water soluble graphite and pen. Something very unusual occured in this session; I set a half hour pose and in that time I did not complete a drawing. A whole 30 minutes and yet I was unable to finish, this never happens! I usually have a whole portfolio of drawings in that time. Admittedly I was working on two sheets of A1 and was taking my time getiing shadows in, I think I will at some point work back into this drawing with water to finish it off as I do think it needs a bit more work (and adding water to the soluble graphite is my favourite bit!)

5 minute pose. Pen

10 minutes, random falling pose. Pen, continuous line

Random fall, pen.

 For the last couple of poses of the session I asked the model to do her 'random falling' trick. I always find it slightly alarming when she does this as she literally throws herself on the floor which looks very painful but she assures me it isn't. It also generally looks like she's been murdered but I assure you no models were harmed in the making of these drawings.

Random Fall #2. Pencil

Random Fall #2. Pen on painted paper

Whilst reading this post I'm sure you've been thinking how much better the photos are than in previous posts. Well, dear readers, they are. On account of the fact that I got a shiny new toy! The camera that I really want is about £400 which I simply cannot justify but I've been saving up my Boots points for some time now and decided I would use them to get a camera. So I did. It's not quite a DSLR but it's pretty impressive, my favourite thing about it is the super macro. The pictures below are details of the texture I put on my prepared papers.

Paper detail

Paper detail