FigureDrawing July 26 2011

I'll admit I have become obsessed with life drawing. I've been twice as often lately as I've posted here - two of the sessions yielded not one useful drawing. And I have struggled and been lost and have loved the entire thing. I used to be done when the session was d0ne - worn out, actually. Tonight I was sorry there were not more poses - and we went two and a half hours instead of the two of my other sessions. This is a group I haven't joined before - you have to be invited (I was grateful to be there) - and I loved the setting, the quality of the poses, and the serious but light hearted company. A wonderful group of artists.

The model is a dancer, singer, and theater person. I hope I conveyed some of that grace in these short drawings. This is the first time an entire set came out worth showing - all five of the five minute poses worked for me - and I was mesmerized as the pastel, used sideways almost the entire time, did what I wanted. It felt like I was just watching it happen, almost. There are also one 2 minute, some 15 minute, and a 25 minute pose here.

Tonight I drew rectangles in my pad beforehand, deliberately planning to place the poses in the shapes - using the whole space in each rectangle as a composition. I didn't achieve what I hoped, but these are a lot closer. My plan is to learn to see the whole space in these smaller drawings (about 6.5 by 9 inches) and then move to larger spaces for longer poses (the 25 minute pose here is about twice that size) and eventually be able to do this for full size sheets.

This group compares their drawings sometimes - which is helpful. It's also interesting to see the different approaches. Several of the others draw in the style of the Italian Renaissance - with sharp conte and white charcoal on slightly tinted paper - beautiful results made with line and hatching. Mine look more like something Impressionist, or Post Impressionist. Others draw more like Expressionists or even like Abstract Expressionists, but truer to life.