Life Drawing

Michael #7, 20 minute sketch - charcoal on craft paperFive hours of life drawing on Friday felt like a marathon. Poses aren't longer than 20 minutes, so capturing the subject's carriage, essence and expression is a lesson in speed sketching. I'm climbing the long steep hill of practice.Michael #4, 5 minute gesture, charcoal on newsprint

Drawings from a life class in Penzance pencil and graphite stick in a sketchbook copyright Katherine Tyrrell Yesterday in 'who's made a mark this week?' I did a round-up of some posts by bloggers who go to a life drawing class. It's been suggested to me that maybe more people would try a life drawing class if they knew what to expect. So - I've developed a draft of a guide to life drawing and

Here are the images from a long intense night. Intense. Can I do this and relax more?? That would be a good thing to explore. One thing is that many of these poses are one or 2 minutes long - I feel under pressure, however I am learning to flick through those controls! Below is one image and link to the rest. They are all on this Page #0649 3e Larger Image.

Another go at life drawing. Good to do. Hard. Learning lots. A lot of sketches… basically I sketch for three hours solid with many poses, it is like entering another world. I’d like to do more, might look for something in New York and in Christchurch, however I feel like such a beginner and different with my tablet there while they all have charcoal. I began at lunchtime with some preparation, exploring textures. Inked in a few from the last time, but that felt wrong, that led to pencil. Finished up using mostly pencil ecept for the large patches of black, used pastel for that. Everything is done in Artrage II. I am putting them all up in two pages. Exploring textures is the first page. Here is one of the sketches, done in one of my favourite San Francisco cafes “Roasters”. #0641 Ritual Larger Image. See more explorations here

Now that was a very interesting new thing to do in my life. What a lot of learning. The sketches are mostly looser & rougher than I put up and all from the one class. They are all part of the project. One ot the things about doing these 1000 sketches is that I do want to sketch and this event gave me “permission to do that. I want to sketch lots to explore, loosen up, and discover my hand. Another few of these events will help. I will also give the same 2 min approach per sketch a go NOW for some still lifes. Below is one, and the link to the rest. The rest are on their own page. #21 in the series of 24 I did Larger Image. More

Leanne - line drawing in pencil(30 minutes, Day 2)So this is the final piece completed on the Workshop, and I am pleased with it! I have to say that the weekend went by in a flash and I learned an incredible amount over two short days. What I would really like to do is to continue with life-drawing classes on a regular basis but that is not possible at the moment. However, it is hoped that a second workshop can be arranged with Burns Pollock later this year .... I must get my name down early to be sure of a place!My thanks goes to Burns (who, by the way, bolstered our artistic energies with a regular supply of chocolate fish!) and all the great people who attended the course - we really had fun together and learned so much from each other in the process.Technorati Tags Art, Weblog, Blog, Artist, Painting

Leanne - last pencil study(35 minutes)This was a real struggle as it was getting on for 3 p.m. on the second day and I was a little punch drunk! I started out with charcoal, scrapped it completely, then started again in graphite and completely lost my way! So, starting with her head, I went over it again with pencil accentuating the linear aspects and getting rid of some of the shading. Of course, in the process it lost any chance of freshness but I felt reasonably happy with the end result.Technorati Tags Art, Weblog, Blog, Artist, Painting

Day Two saw us battling with the following exercise - 5 sketches of our model from five different angles. Time allowed 6 minutes each sketch!Leanne - Figure Perspective Day 2(Pencil, 6 minutes each)Technorati Tags Art, Weblog, Blog, Artist, Painting

Well the Workshop was FANTASTIC ..... ! It was taken by Burns Pollock, Otago artist, and we had 10 participants. Burns is the most delightful and informative tutor and we were very relaxed and comfortable in no time. But he kept us at it without a doubt! We worked in pencil, graphite and charcoal as the spirit moved us, and I will post just some of the pile of stuff (good and bad) that I produced over the two days. We had a different model for both days (in case you notice a difference!).First off here are some quick sketches ... we did loads of these and the model only held her pose for 5 seconds or so before moving to the next. Our remit was to LOOK, SEE and draw a GESTURAL sketch that best described the pose. Tough to do!Technorati Tags Art, Weblog, Blog, Artist, Painting

I love drawing on this crinkly brown craft paper, but taking photos of the results is always an insurmountable challenge. I'm finally arriving at the inevitable conclusion that if I like working on this color, I'm going to have to find a source for it that is in a form that stays flatter. I finally got back to open studio life drawing today. It's such a great break from my usual art routine. I'll have 8 weeks of it on Sundays. That should almost get me back to plein air season! The poses were mostly one minute and ten minutes. We only got two, twenty-five minute poses out of the three hour session. If I can get better images, I'll show a couple of the others too, and I'll try to rephotograph this one.

The image above is a cropped version of the 36x24" sketch of Amy. I never feel I come away from a life drawing session with a "finished" piece since the poses are so short, but it's great practice to keep going after that elusive goal. This sketch was done on my favorite brown crinkly craft paper, which makes it hard to get a good photo. I tear off 24x36" sheets from a huge roll and clip them to a big piece of foamcore. I like working on the midtone surface, since I can just add my lights and darks. Amy is a fabulous model and also an artist, so she always thinks about how a pose will fill the page. The medium is charcoal and pastels. The full image is below.