Life Drawing 21.7.15

Random Fall, continuous line drawing

After a bit of a break it was really good to get my Life Drawing sessions restarted this month. I enjoyed being back in the Prism Arts studio with a clear focus and time just to draw. Although I love drawing and regard it as a really important part of my practice it can sometimes be hard to fit it in, other (usually mundane) activities seem to take priority so I appreciate the life drawing sessions as time set aside specifically to draw and nothing else.

Continuous Line

Continuous Line

Continuous Line

It was also good to see my regular attendees as well and a model who has been with us from the start but since the change of day has been unable to sit for us. It was great to see her again and I particularly enjoyed the chance to utilise her 'random fall' modelling approach (it is exactly what it sounds like, she falls randomly and we draw the results!)

Practising drawing the face

Practising drawing the face

Practising drawing the face

Although during the sessions we are mostly quiet, with us all focused on our drawing, part of the appeal of life drawing is the social side; being with other people doing the same thing. I think this is probably one of the reasons that it was identified as one of the best ways to keep dementia at bay, according to a recent BBC radio programme (and a growing body of scientific research.) The other critical factor is the hand-eye-brain co-ordination that life drawing involves. As I have mentioned many times before life drawing seems to demand a certain type of focus, it improves your drawing in a way other drawing doesn't seem to. It is, for me, a kind of meditative process that allows me to almost bypass the concious brain and allow my eyes and hands to 'talk' directly to each other.

Continuous line

Continuous line

Despite having had a not great day I found that once I'd got to the session and got everything set up I was looking forward to drawing and as soon as we started I immediately relaxed and began to enjoy the session and drawing. I like the sound and the feel of the pen gliding across the paper, seeing a tangle of lines arrange themselves into something resembling the human body.

Continuous line

Drawing is seeing and creating at the same time, expressing and recording what's in front of you. When I'm life drawing I don't think about the outcome, I try and just enjoy the process and not concern myself with what it will be or look like. I think this approach actually improves my drawing as it relieves any pressure and as I'm not expending energy worrying I can use that energy to create my drawing.

Random fall

Random fall

Hanging off a chair

Recently, in the spirit of facing up to challenges, I've been trying to draw faces more as this is my weakest point. I did several face studies this evening, with varying degrees of success. Overall though I think I am improving and I'm certainly feeling more confident about not cutting the heads off my drawings! Next session I may even try some different media...

Life Drawing October 2014

Green pen, continuous line

Last night was the second life drawing session with my new set up. It felt nice and relaxed as I had a better idea how it would all work having got the first session out the way and it was great to see a couple of faces back again from the old group. The new space works well for us and is warm and inviting.

Pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line

I really enjoyed my drawing last night, I felt quite relaxed and didn't worry about how the drawings would turn out. Unusually for me I worked quite small, almost fitting whole figures on a page! Usually I like to work very large and end up taping multiple sheets of paper together but last night I was quite content to work on a smaller scale.

Pen, continuous line on tea stained paper

Pen, continuous line on tea stained paper

Pen, continuous line on coloured paper

As usual I worked almost exclusively in pen but I tried to use some different coloured pens and different coloured papers to see how that affected the drawings. I like the neutral coloured paper but, particularly with the more simple line drawings, I do like the contrast of black ink on white paper.

Red pen, continuous line

Green pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line

We had some really interesting poses from our model for this session, lots of twists and unusual angles which are a challenge to draw but make even quite simple poses exciting. Particularly in the longer poses I found I was struggling to get the proportions and details right so I stopped trying to and did some fast continuous line sketches. I tried to not think too much about what I was drawing but just to let my eyes tell my hands where to go without interference from my concious mind. I like these drawings because although the proportion still isn't quite right the drawings give a real feel of the pose, more so I find than a more considered drawing because it is a very direct response whereas the more time you spend on a drawing the more time there is for other things to creep in.

Pen, continuous line