2007

January 31st - Relaxed and productive

		When I'm least expecting it, I have a great evening's drawing! I mean great as in enjoyable, rather than describing the quality of my work. The "not knowing what I'm going to produce" is sometimes frustrating but it's something I'm slowly learning to enjoy and accept. Last night, I opted to ask Trish to do 4 short 15 minute standing/leaning poses, followed by a one and a half hour sitting pose. The 15 minute sessions are tricky but interesting - they're too long to simply do a spontaneous, intuitive drawing but that little bit too short to ponder for any length of time. I probably spent the first 2 or 3 minutes just looking - looking for the angles, shapes, a line or something else that captures the essence of the pose. In the drawing on the left, it was the angle of the head, the tense curve of the neck and the pale shoulder which shouted "draw me, get me right and you're half way there". Much of this critical mark making is done quite quickly, with the remaining time spent refining, re-drawing ... or fiddling!. On reflection, I might reduce them to 10 minutes next week.
Trish -15 minute pose
		Looking back over the last year, I find it interesting to see how my 'style' has evolved. Comparing the most recent work with the earliest, I think there's evidence of more confidence, or perhaps conviction, a tiny bit of self-belief?. My lines have a more decisive feel about them and I seem less intent on drawing the same line over and over again. I'm also happier and more able to leave areas of the paper unmarked and I think this results in a calmer drawing. The earlier 'hairy' drawings seem to make the eye work very hard because there's so much going on. This isn't to say that I won't go back to re-use this method - I pesonally don't wish to develop a style which I use week in, week out, whatever the weather, whatever my mood.
Trish - 15 minute pose

January 26th - Portrait of Jan

I've often thought what an elegant and expressive face Jan has but when I'm drawing her figure, I rarely spend a long time drawing her face ... when I do, it's often a cursory ten minutes. After checking with Jan that she didn't mind my sitting very close to her during the 'long pose', I challenged myself with something I don't often do - a portrait.

The drawing below took two, maybe two and a half hours over a two week period and I'd still only call it a working sketch. When a model has very distinctive features like Jan, there appears to be more of a need for accuracy in order to get a good likeness. The figure tends to be a bit more forgiving because whilst it might have a distinctive shape (and sometimes a mood), without eyes and mouth it doesn't have the same ability to communicate emotion.

2006

November 29th - ... could have drawn all night

I'm slowly getting used to the fact that the results of my Wednesday nights drawing cannot be predicted!
I can arrive full of good intentions and come away with 'nothing', whilst on the other hand, I might arrive in a negative frame of mind, mulling over the previous week's disasters, only to end the evening with a couple of half-decent pieces of work.

Last night, I'd decided beforehand that I was just going to do some small A3 size sketches, rather than trying to create a finished drawing and maybe it was this more relaxed attitude that helped, I can't be sure. The resulting drawings (below) just seemed to 'happen' ... almost without thinking and without any glaring errors of proportion which I seem to blunder headlong into when I'm tense or unsettled.

I'm also trying to work more tonally at the moment and finding the simple combination of a very soft pencil (nothing harder than a 7b) and a rubber is a good combination. I use the rubber almost as much as the pencil to draw because it creates a huge variety of tones very quickly and effectively - a distinct advantage when time is short as it is on Wednesday evenings.

November 9th - Loosening up

The third session of this winter's life drawing group and the brushes and paints emerged. For the first two weeks I've been doing 'safe' drawings on small sheets of paper and not really pushing any boundaries or learning much. So, I decided this week it was time to committ and get the paints out ... and what a difference. Whilst the end result (to follow as soon as I've taken a few photographs) clearly show that I had some problems getting the proportions right, the looseness of the painting was great fun and working just in tone made a huge difference as there was no temptation (or possibility) to outline the figure. This isn't to say that line drawings like those below are not equally valuable in terms of describing the figure, particularly if the line is varied in weight, tension and density but sometimes a change of style or technique can help to break bad habits like lazy drawing and bad observation.

June 29th - Life Drawing, 10 minute sketches

		I'm not going to say too much about these three quick sketches, apart from extoling the huge value of working quickly and looking hard. Personally, quick work is mighty difficult but when it works, it really works - but only when the concentration is 100%. You can't be lazy or sloppy, it's all about spotting the line, the lean, a juxtaposition of shapes or the gesture that catches the essence of the pose. These three sketches are all very different, top left has a certain tension about it, the pose is slightly awkward and that comes across in the tautness of the leg muscles, - top right, you almost feel the model is ready to move off or turn around, again it's in the legs and the twist of the torso - on the left, the model is relaxed and calm and the marks are fewer and softer. When the drawings are happening, you don't have much (if any) time to think, so this post-session analysis can be quite revealing.

May 31st - No feet (again)!

After a bit of manipulation of arms and legs, the model last night slipped into this rather wonderful pose with a fantastic twist in the pelvis which made it a real joy to draw from several angles. By total coincidence, I found myself drawing on the diagonal again (see previous weeks drawing below). It's also interesting to see the softer, less aggressive mark making and overall use of tone between my male and female drawings. You may be thinking, "she's opted out from drawing feet again" but I can honestly say this composition was a conscious decision which I made when I initially looked at the pose.

April 5th - 'Reclining'

Whilst I'd be the first to acknowledge that there are areas of this drawing that are unfinished and unresolved, I really feel I'm beginning to find my way with my life drawing and starting to make good use of the 3 hours every Wednesday night.

I normally spend the first hour (possibly a little more) looking, drawing, rubbing out, looking harder, re-drawing, rubbing out - and quite often by the time the model has his first break, my piece of paper contains nothing much more than a few explosive scribbles, whereas other artists have completed several drawings. I guess this is just the way I naturally work, so I don't get disheartened. I like to be able to see a faint ghost of the badly drawn leg or broken looking arm, so that the next attempt is better.

When the model is in a reclining pose, I find myself drawn to a position where the foreshortening is quite dramatic.
In this instance, I particularly wanted to emphasize the diagonal line which the body created across the paper

The bent leg was drawn 2 or 3 times before it started to convey the tension in the thigh muscles and the way the knee is slightly raised.

I've still not managed to get the whole figure on a single sheet of paper, even though I'm now working at A1 size but in this weeks drawing I think the 'footless' composition adds to rather than detracts from the whole image.

March 29th - 10 minute sketch

I've not included this drawing because I think it's a particularly successful piece but because there are one or two aspects of it which 'work'. I also believe it's important to look at and understand the errors in drawings which will eventually be destroyed. What's wrong with it? ... Well, firstly I made some bad judgements about the overall proportions by not assessing the whole figure carefully enough before starting to draw. Secondly, without going into too much detail, the bottom is definately not right!. The hard continouous line around the right buttock creates a flatness rather than suggesting a roundness. So, what works? The left leg shows the tension of the pose quite well as do the angle and lean into the right leg. The lower part of the stomach and hint of the stretched ribcage. At the very top right, the raised right arm just revealing the chin.

Feb 8th - 'Hairy' drawing!

I seem to be developing, albeit unintentionally, a life drawing style. Someone in the group described it as 'hairy' which was amusing but probably quite a good way of putting it. I find that with 'hairy' mark making I describe the 3D'ness of the body better and it pushes me away from a natural instinct to draw an outline. It has always puzzled me why I (and other artists) delineate the body with a line which in reality isn't there.

Surely it would be more natural to see a figure in terms of tone? In the drawing below, I've started to work back into the pencil with a rubber to try and achieve a more tonal drawing - it's starting to work in places but it's very, very difficult to move away from linear definition.