As part of the series of classes I went to earlier this year around drawing the head I also started using quite a bit of ink. It’s quite a free way to draw, especially when used with a brush.
Something I am planning to experiment with further.
Here are a series of quick drawings I did at the end of a longer session.
Another week of life drawing. I forgot all my equipment so I just worked in the charcoal supplied by the school.
We started with a few five minute poses and I was a bit rusty as I’d missed a week. Here’s one (the others were terrible and on such flimsy paper I jettisoned them). I quite like this one although in terms of likeness it’s not really that close.
And then we had a longer one hour pose. I often rush through this and finish way before the end and spend time tinkering or trying some other angles on fresh drawings. This week I took my time and worked more methodically.
Looking at it now some of the light and dark seems out of balance, but it was actually a reasonable likeness so that’s something!
It’s a new term and I have switched group at The Royal Drawing School to one that is focussing on the head rather than the whole form.
Drawing the figure is hard and I think drawing the face is the hardest part (followed by hands and then feet in that order!) mainly because I know I over think that part. I forget to just relax and draw what I see rather than try to make it look ‘right’.
So how did week one go? OK.
We started with some quick poses, 10 and 15 minutes.
And the moved onto some longer poses. I tried not to worry about likeness too much but focus on structure, light and shadow and hope that some sort of likeness would be a side product of that. Kind of worked.
Big week this week, I seemed to make many many drawings.
We had two models for the session as one was a little late and we shared with another group at the start – they’re different sexes so hopefully it’s easy to tell which is which.
10 – 15 minute pose to start. I tried working with chalk.
Then 2 minute poses to warm up.
Then something new. New for me anyway as I am sure I’ve never really drawn with ink before. Pretty sure anyway.
We all took a pot of ink and a wooden kebab stick and got started. In this first drawing you can see me struggling with my materials a bit as I don’t complete the whole figure before we move on.
Then I get to add a brush.
And finally once we have familiarised ourselves a bit we tried two longer poses, around 25 minutes I think.
I really enjoyed working this way. Something to try again.
Only one drawing this week. I was late and had to wait for a break to join the session and so only completed this one 25 minute drawing.
More similar to my normal style, I still think it gained something from the more sculptural drawing I did last week.
I was sorting though some old work and found this. It’s an anatomical drawing I did as a student when we studied the construction of the figure in order to understand more fully what we were trying to capture.
I liked it and so pulled it out of the the pile and of course it’s timely given my refocus on life drawing at the moment.
Much better. I think I managed to get some tone involved and also thought more about the total drawing, not just seeing the figure as an outline.
We thought more about framing and trying to situate the figure. As usual shorter, 15 minute poses to start.
One minute poses…very sketchy…
And finally the longer pose, around 45 minutes I think.
Week three was a harder week. I didn’t feel that I made as much progress as in the previous sessions but I’m including all the drawings I make to hopefully capture some progression.
Here goes. A shorter pose to start and I was running late hence I didn’t quite complete this chap….
Then quick one to two minute poses to warm up.
I was pleased with some of the shapes in these but the tutor pointed out that there was very little tone present. I agreed.
And the longer final pose. Some tone in this.
There was something weird happening with the shoulder on my version, so I tried again for ten minutes at the end.
So no great break throughs, but OK.
On Fridays after work the drawing school run a Drink and Draw session. It’s a nice idea to do some more informal drawing before the weekend, maybe with a friend or two. However, I found it a bit too busy and hard to focus as the normal silence of the drawing studio was broken by a little chatter. At least that’s my excuse!
Anyway here’s how I got on.
Quick poses to start, all 2 minutes. A couple of these I was pretty pleased with, they capture the form, but feel free and have some energy to them.
Then a longer pose, I think around 15-20 minutes. The first one I’m not so into as it’s heavy and I can see that I struggled. It’s kind of flat, although I do like the line that runs down the back to the hip.
The second I prefer although it’s far from perfect.
A quick diversion into red chalk..
Then finally the long pose which is my least favourite. I tend to work reasonably fast and so I struggle a bit with overworking these ones.
It’s been an age since I have focussed on drawing for drawing rather than as a prep stage for a painting.
And even longer since I have done any life drawing, something I always loved as a student. And so I’ve fixed that and started going to evening drawing at the Royal Drawing School. It’s been so long and I am so rusty that I was pretty worried about just how bad I’d be. Life drawing is popular but it is also really hard and can be a bit depressing at times when things just won’t work out.
So I’ve decided to try and record a hoped for improvement here, session by session. That includes the bad, the medium and the hoped for good….
Week one started with some quicker but not super quick poses, around 10 – 15 minutes each. And also a change for me to use charcoal something I always avoided as an art student, although I can’t remember why exactly. I think I just found that everything got very dark and hard to work.
Then some longer half hour poses.
toriewilkinson 