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

Life Drawing 16.9.14

Pen, continuous line, 3 minutes

After a break and a re-organise this week saw the return of my life drawing classes. I have changed days, times and venue and instead of being every other week I am trying out running the sessions once a month instead. So, lots of changes but it was really good to see familiar faces again; I am very lucky to have a regular group of people who support my sessions and are a large part of the reason I keep them going.

Overlapping sketches

Hand studies, pen

Running life drawing sessions is a funny thing, there is lots of interest and people keep complaining about the lack of opportunities to do life drawing and yet I struggle to get enough people to come to sessions and from talking to other organisers this is not a problem unique to me.

Pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line

Anyway, I digress. The session went well, the new space is lovely to work in and our model gave us some excellent poses. I have been getting back into daily drawing but despite this I felt very rusty and it took me a while to get into the flow of drawing. My proportions were a bit out in a lot of my drawings and there were a couple of times I just couldn't get it to work as I wanted but I enjoyed the session and felt myself improving  as the session went on.

Pencil, 5 minutes

Pen, continuous line

I worked mostly in pen and continuous line as I wanted to work with something I was familiar and comfortable with until I got back into the swing of it. I was really struggling with one of the poses (a longish pose of 30 minutes) so I got out my trusty permanent markers and worked with them. You have to work really quickly with permanent marker otherwise it just makes a hole in the paper so it's a good thing to turn to when you need to loosen up and just draw.

Pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line

'Blind' drawing, single line

I did a drawing of the models feet with the permanent marker that I was really pleased with. I hardly looked at the paper and drew really quickly. I like working in this way, it's almost like bypassing the thinking part of your brain and letting your eyes talk directly to your hands. Sometimes the results are rather strange but I find it helps capture the idea of a pose and it has, for me, an appealing simplicity and immediacy.

Permanent marker, continuous line

Permanent marker, continuous line

It will be interesting to see how my drawing is next session, a month is quite a long time but hopefully I won't have rusted up too much!

New Life Drawing Sessions

I've been running Life Drawing Sessions in Carlisle for about two and a half years and I really enjoy it. However, earlier this year I decided I had to make some changes as although I enjoyed the sessions and have built up a great group of regulars I was struggling to break even, making it an expensive business! So, I have been pondering, meeting and deliberating and have changed the set up slightly. All the details should be on the poster but if you have any questions please feel free to get in touch. I hope to see you there in September.