There is a group of artists in Pittenweem getting together once a month for life drawing practice. It is good to have this challenge especially at the beginning of a new year. working alongside other artists is always inspirational and fun.
This was my first drawing at the start of a new term of Life Drawing Class in Dundee. I am enjoying the challenge that this kind of drawing from life demands.
This was my drawing from last nights life drawing class. I used vandyke ink to block in the major shapes, then once that had dried I did my drawing over the ink. I used charcoal initially then conte to get a nice strong dark. I finished by putting some pastel colour to indicate the blanket she was lying on.
I did this oil pastel sketch on the first day of the life drawing workshop. Each pose by the model was for 5 mins. The model would go into another pose for the next 5 mins and so on until she had done six different poses. I started in the centre of my paper with my lightest yellow oil pastel. The drawings were layered on top of previous sketches using stronger coloured oil pastels as I progressed. This was a real fun exercise.
This sketch was done in 40minutes at the workshop on day one. I used charcoal, pastel and conte.
This week I attended a two day Life Drawing Workshop at Dundee College. It was excellent and a great opportunity to create lively interesting sketches. This sketch incorporated two models with a background setup of bikes and brightly coloured flags. There were a total of four models. The models moved around the games hall to allow artists to have a change of model for each drawing.
This was the life study I did at last weeks life drawing class. I started with a light drawing in conte then washes of gouache and finally drawing again in conte and some pastels.
Last week I did a large collage life drawing 21 inches by 30 inches. This was done over two weeks with 2 hour sessions. I started by using gesso on the paper surface. Once dry I added strips of glossy magazines approx the shape of the figure. Then more gesso and acrylic paint. Some of the background paper shows through. Quite messy however good fun. A great way to achieve some interesting effects.
After doing the warm up exercise at life drawing class we got down to a few 40min exercises. This contour drawing was done with conte and then washes were applied using an opaque paint. The skin tone was done in small brush strokes in different directions. Several colours were used in layers. First orange then blue then a warm red. I didn’t quite get this finished.
As title suggest the object of this lesson was to observe the model and draw without looking at your drawing. We were to stand side on to the easel stopping any temptation to peek at what our hand was drawing.