Life Drawings

One of the promises I made to myself this year was that I wanted to attend as many of the local life drawing sessions as I could. So, on one recent snowy Wednesday evening, I loaded charcoal and paper into Buttercup the Beetle and we skated over the Skye bridge and into Kirkton on the mainland.

In the spirit of showing all drawings, warts and all, here are the first few short poses. If you follow the drawings round anti-clockwise from the top left, you can see my drawing speed increase to get as much into the three minutes allotted per pose as I could. The top right-hand drawing was a slightly longer pose at around fifteen minutes.

This is the final longer pose, using three shades of grey soft pastels, blended from light to dark to create a shadowy texture:

(I haven’t placed these drawings for sale but am always open to enquiries should any take your fancy – just click here to ask me)

Thank you to my patrons for making my art learning and practice possible,

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My most recent online life drawing session from the School of Painting, St Ives focused on the folded line, and was fabulously lead by Tom Rickman.

I love the way material can drape a form to show the inner shape, yet never seem to really practice drawing and painting it, so this was a great opportunity to learn more.

Working in charcoal on white A4 cartridge paper, we started off with a couple of swift poses:

The pose lengths were extended a little:

We then ended with two longer poses with some more complex folds to try and get into proportion:

Thank you to my patrons for making my art learning and practice possible,

your support means the world to me x

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Last month’s life drawing session from the School of Painting was focused on the work of Whistler. I felt especially lucky this time as Julie, the model has gone to the trouble of making her dress specifically for this class – how amazingly dedicated is that?

We started off with some quick standing poses in charcoal on white cartridge paper:

Then a couple of seated poses:

Moving onto ink for a slightly longer pose:

And then I got to try gouache for the first time in over twenty years. I’d forgotten what a versatile medium it is:

Back to charcoal for the final standing pose:

I haven’t placed these drawings for sale but am always open to enquiries should any take your fancy – just click here to ask me.

Thank you to my patrons for making my art learning and practice possible,

your support means the world to me x

(fancy becoming a patron? click here for more information)

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this online life drawing session with the School of Painting – but then that adds to the anticipation of learning new things doesn’t it? The class focused on Picasso’s style of painting his figures in multiple dimensions, merging the viewing angles to distort and give a whole new perspective.

So, drawing in charcoal on Clairefontaine A4 ribbed Kraft paper (90gm/41lb), we started off with head and shoulder viewpoints which were then combined:

The combination-figures then progressed to include more of the body:

Longer, single view poses followed, focusing on the playful patterns that Picasso favoured:

And we rounded off with dancing, swift single line poses:

I loved the encouragement to be playful in our drawing during this session. As always, an excellent insight into this aspect of an artist’s work.

I haven’t placed these drawings for sale but am always open to enquiries should any take your fancy – just click here to ask me.

Thank you to my patrons for making my art learning and practice possible,

your support means the world to me x

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I experienced a way of life drawing I haven’t used in a long time during a recent online session with the School of Painting, St Ives. the session focused on shape and shadow, influenced by images from classic cinematic scenes. As you can guess from the title, I was drawing the model and her shadow. I used charcoal throughout and, as is usually the case with that medium, I loved some of the results! Here are my drawings from the session:

Still poses:

(↑ this is my favourite drawing of the session)

Drawings whilst the model moved and swirled, I sketched the images when she paused for a few moments:

I haven’t placed these drawings for sale but am always open to enquiries should any take your fancy – just click here to ask me.

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Thank you to my patrons for making my art learning and practice possible,

your support means the world to me x

(fancy becoming a patron? click here for more information)