Life Drawing

Life Drawing 3 March

Hello there

Thanks for 'blogging on' to us. You may cringe at that, but I thought it was kind of funny anyway!  
  
As posted earlier, this week we were scheduled to have a group life drawing session - no nudes (we have elderly ladies in the group who may blush at one end of the scale or faint at the higher end), so we have to take it steady. Unfortunately the booked 'model' could not make it, so we quickly had to make other plans. Luckily one of our members came along with his nephew - are you getting the plan yet?

Dan was 'volunteered' as our stand-in and was quite happy to, but his face was a picture (no pun intended) when he asked does he have to model nude? No I said, while he let out a huge sigh of relief - you can keep your socks on! Poor lad didn't know what to do.

So, to get us all in the mood and warmed up, we started with a couple of short 10 minute poses with Dan sitting and everyone concentrating on his head, with some striking likenesses emerging - even Dan was pleased after all his dread. After a short break we then had a couple of 15 minute timed poses, again sitting and concentrating on his head. Dan had not 'modelled' before which was the reason why we didn't try anything else. He was unsure if he could stand and hold a pose for any length of time, which was fair enough.
 

Dan in pencil

Another quick pencil sketch

 

Most of us used our own trusty pencils to work with, though there  were   a couple of charcoal dust producers and one watercolour painter. I was using a Kohi-I-Noor pencil for the first time - maybe I'll do a small write up on it in a later post. It's often quite interesting having a sneaky look round while we all sit     and work away to see what other folks use. The variety of paper, pads, supports, pens, pencils etc is almost as endless as some manufacturers catalogues. I often 
doubt there are two artists using the same materials!

Time for another short break as we and our trusty model each stretched our limbs while we all wandered round having a look at what each had produced. There was some good work out there, plus of course the odd caricature (especially from me) - my excuse being that I did not want to use a putty rubber, trying to work without stopping to keep correcting as we had the mobile phone timer switched on!

Dan in a soft pencil

 

Male and female paired

Male and female re-paired

 











Last break, and everyone was buzzing - congratulating everyone else's efforts whilst laughing down our own. I'm sure you all have the same at your own groups, they must all be roughly the same the world over. To try and keep it fun, which is one of the main aims, we decided to have the last 40 minutes with something of a twist. This time we would pair up with a nearby sitter, but just to add that little bit more to it, we had to pair male/female. Just 15 minutes to sketch the other whilst trying to hold a pose of our own as they worked on you at the same time! Oh what fun and confusion we had: 'You've moved! - No I have not!' It was such a simple method yet generated so much fun. At the end the results were laid bare for each to see. Many close friendships were made that night (cough).

Brian worked in a soft pencil

Cynthia worked in pencil

Final event of the evening saw us change partners for the last time - still female/male, but to make it a little easier we took it in turns to spend time sketching each other. Rushing to get done before the final bell went there was some very busy arms flailing around, but we each got what we wanted done and sat around swapping glances at your partners efforts of yourself, whilst trying to explain away things like - 'I can see it's a fair likeness but where are my glasses?' and other such helpful pointers.
 
All in all it was a really good, enjoyable evening, with some of those who had been artists for many years having had some fun and learnt a few things along the way. As with nearly every Life Drawing session I have been to they are invaluable for honing your skills, be it in general observation, sketching work or simply giving you the confidence to go and tackle something else.


I have a feeling that when the next life drawing session pops up in the Society's schedule - whenever it may be - will be just as good and hopefully benficial, though one or two may come 'armed' and better prepared! 

This coming Saturday is the Hobbies Exhibition, so look forward to a post on that in due course.

G.A.S.