Life Drawing 9.1.18

Black felt tip pen, continuous line

A New Year and some new Life Drawing sessions! I was looking back over my pictures from last year and realised that we had the same model in January 2017 as we did this evening. This is no bad thing as I always enjoy drawing this evenings model and am generally quite pleased with how my work turns out. He's very confident and solid and somehow I find that translates into my drawings, I want to use strong bold lines and just go for it.

Felt tip pen, blind drawing

Felt tip pen, continuous line

Felt tip pen, continuous line

I did have a minor tragedy, I only had one of my favourite drawing pens (where on earth have they all gone? I had loads) and this ran out before the end of the session. However, I did have a lot of fun drawing with felt tips, I really like the way it glides across the page and the strong bold lines it creates. I'm not sure I'd like to draw all of my models with these pens but they were perfect for this evening and I felt like it got me out of a bit of a rut.

Blind drawing

Very fine fine liner

Blind drawing

I also went back to my sticking multiple sheets of paper together approach as I seem to be incapable of fitting a body on one piece of paper. I really enjoyed the expanding drawing and actually spent over twenty minutes on one drawing, which for me is a long time. I think for the first time ever I wanted slightly longer poses as I was really focused and intent on my drawings. Maybe that's what I'll do next session, which I suspect will please the other artists who say that five minutes is not long enough for a drawing!

Blind drawing

Blind drawing

Blind drawing

It was also good to see the other artists after the Christmas break. As usual I was tired from work and could quite happily have gone home and gone to sleep but seeing everyone and getting into my drawing really energised me and I felt very positive at the end of the session.

Felt tip pen, continuous line

Continuous line

Continuous line

Blind drawing

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Continuous line

Chicken Wallpaper and other new Trends

Chicken wallpaper in yellow

Chicken wallpaper in red

As regular followers will know I am currently doing an interiors project with the No Borders Art Group at Harraby Community centre. Since the last post about their mood boards they have raced ahead and their model rooms are really coming together.

Room with collaged wallpaper

Room with chandelier

Kitchen with collage tiled floor

One of the things that I love about working with people is the different approaches people take to the same task and the highly individual outcomes. Last week I worked with one of the group to create some customised wallpaper for her room. Chickens have been a running theme so I asked her to draw some chickens, I then used her drawings to make stencils and she then used the stencils to print up two sheets of wallpaper. When the prints were dry she worked back into the prints with a fine-liner to add eyes and some bits of pipe cleaner for beaks.

Drawing and colouring chickens

Turning the drawings into stencils

Printing with the stencils

Detail of chicken wallpaper

This week I worked with a different group member to make a free standing mirror. She began by cutting out lots of pictures of mirrors from magazines which we then went through discussing what it was about each one that she liked. From this discussion we came up with a design and colour ideas and started to make the mirror. We  made a cardboard frame which she painted and decorated with gems and beads, I can't wait to see the finished item!

Painted pieces for the mirror

Embellishing the mirror frame

Really embellishing the mirror frame

This mirror will go in the very glamorous room which already features a fabulous chandelier and will also house some totally unique upholstery. Last week the creator of this room pieced together a fabric collage which we are going to use to cover the furniture maquettes we will be making in the next couple of weeks. Watch this space! (Well, not this space, as this will stay pretty much the same but a shiny new post will be added and that will have amazing furniture maquettes in it.)

Arranging selected fabrics on a base

Final arrangement

Stitched arrangement