Life Drawing 27.3.14

Pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line

Despite having a very busy week and being a little bit shattered I really enjoyed this session, I got into my drawing quite quickly and was pleased with some of my sketches. Drawing is a very good form of relaxation for me, when I'm drawing (or knitting or crocheting) I'm not worrying; as I discussed with one of the other artists it is the best form of meditation as it allows the mind to focus on one thing and not be pulled off in all manner of odd directions.

Water-soluble graphite

Pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line

As usual I mostly worked with pens this evening but I went back to the water soluble graphite, inspired by a conversation with another artist earlier in the week and seeing some of the amazing drawings he'd produced using this medium. It's not my best drawing but I enjoyed it and it was good to change from just working with pens.

Overlapping sketches

Pen, continuous line

3 pens together

Life Drawing 30.1.14

Continuous line, pen. 

Time is a very strange thing, Life Drawing Thursdays seem to come around ever so quickly and yet I often feel that two weeks is a long time between sessions. I'm not sure I could manage running the sessions weekly yet somehow every other week isn't quite right either. Maybe we should have a 10 day week (with a 4 day weekend of course) instead of a 7 day week?

Continuous line, pen

Continuous line, pen

Anyway, the second session in this block was another enjoyable session. I still feel quite rusty and out of practice but less so than last session. We had a new model who gave us some excellent poses and a new artist as well, which is great as hopefully word is spreading. It would probably spread faster if I got better at advertising but you can't do everything well!

Ballpoint pen, continuous line

Pen on prepared paper

Pen, drawn without looking at paper

I especially enjoyed my pen drawings this session. I find continuous line drawing with a decent pen is a truly satisfying experience, the feel of the pen across the paper and the smooth, sweeping movements is very rewarding. I also like the aesthetic of continuous line drawings which helps and the challenge of describing form with line.

Water soluble graphite on prepared paper, the proportions are wrong but
there are some nice effects

Detail of drawing above

As discussed last session I tried working with 3 ballpoint pens taped together. It was quite hard as it is difficult to keep all 3 pens on the page at one time but it is quite a fun way of drawing, although the results have a tendency to make me feel slightly sea-sick! I think this has potential though and I will have a practice at making it work.

Drawing with three pens at once

Life Drawing 16.1.14

Pen, continuous line

Thursday was the first Life Drawing session of the year after a bit of a break over the festive season. It was really nice to see people again and to do some drawing, although I felt very out of practice. It is amazing how quickly you can fall out of the habit and I know my drawing was not up to standard. However, I don't mind as I know that once I get back into it it will improve again and I'm looking forward to developing my drawing further this year.

Water soluble graphite on prepared paper

I did quite a lot of work with my water soluble graphite this session but I wasn't happy with any of the results, however, it felt good to be drawing and as I said before with practice and time I will get 'get my eye in' and my drawing will improve again.

Pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line

Having had a bit more time recently I was able to bring some prepared papers to this session-paper that I had previously worked on by adding poster paint, a bit of colour or newsprint to. I like working on prepared paper as it is a little less scary than a sheet of pure new paper, although sometimes if I really like a surface I've prepared and then do a drawing I'm not very happy with it can be a bit disappointing.

Pen, continuous line

Pen, continuous line

As ever I fell back on my tried and trusted pen drawings which I am becoming more and more confident with, I love the quality of line and the challenge of creating form using line rather than tone. One of the people who attends the sessions was telling me about a sculptor who drew with three biros taped together, I think this sounds like a great way of working and I am looking forward to trying it out next session.

Pen, continuous line

Life Drawing 17.10.13

Continuous line, pen

We had a new model for this session and it was really interesting to see how how models approach poses very differently. We had some great poses and it was a nice challenge to have someone unfamiliar to draw.

5 minute pose

5 minute pose, several drawings on one sheet

Hands and a foot!

I was really pleased with my drawing tonight. Unusually I took a lot more time than usual on the longer poses (just doing one drawing rather than several) and although there is always room for improvement I'm pleased with some of the results.

15 minute pose, pen

30 minute pose, water-soluble graphite

I also went back to my water-soluble graphite this week and am pleased with the way the drawing has come out. It was an interesting pose with the legs turned in which made for some funny angles but a good challenge.

Continuous line

Hand study

Foreshortening

I really enjoy running these sessions but it is sometimes a difficult balancing act. From a drawing point of view it is great to have new models, giving us a different challenge and stopping us relying on what we know and focusing instead on really looking. On the other hand, the 'familiar' models have all been great models, been reliable and helped get the group started so I don't want them to feel they've been 'dumped' in favour of, literally, a new model. I'm hoping that next year I will be able to offer sessions to everyone and no-one will feel left out!

Life Drawing 5.9.13

I drew a lot of feet... This one is done in water-soluble graphite

I was in a particularly good mood for this session as it was just before I set off on holiday. Because I was feeling quite relaxed I just got on with my drawings, doing a lot of continuous line and not really worrying too much about how they turned out.

Long pose. Water-soluble graphite

Water-soluble graphite stick dipped in water

Pen, multiple studies

Pen, continuous line

Using 2 pens at once

Continuous line

Continuous line

Continuous line

Continuous line

Life Drawing 22.8.13

Water-soluble graphite

Another busy few weeks and no time to keep my blog up to date! Since the pageant I've done some melty plastic workshops, life drawing, mint fest and a few other bits and bobs. But I will start with the last life drawing session.

Continuous line, pen

It was a very enjoyable session and as always our model gave us some excellent poses, I always enjoy drawing this model as I love the rhythmic curves her poses create. I especially enjoyed the longer poses this session and was pleased with my drawings. I worked with the water-soluble graphite both in washes and using the graphite stick dipped in water to get strong, dark lines.

30 minutes, water-soluble graphite

'Random Fall' Continuous line drawing, pen

Continuous line, pen

I did a lot of line drawings again as well as quite a lot of 'blind' drawing (drawing without looking at the page.) I very much enjoy the freedom of drawing in this way; because you are not looking at the page you don't expect your drawing to look good so you stop worrying about it and just draw. As a consequence the drawing actually does tend to be quite good because there is no pressure and no worries and you very much draw what you see. I also find that the more I do it the better it gets, the communication between the eyes and the hands becomes very quick, almost bypassing the conscious mind. It is quite an instinctive process and very relaxing.

'Blind' drawings, hands and feet

Semi-blind drawing

'Blind' drawing