The Shapes Marilyn Makes!

Marilyn is a remarkable model who can hold the most outrageous poses with precision and quiet. She has long toned legs the body of a former ballet dancer. Today we began with a 15 minute pose followed by a series of 3 or so minute poses. I worked in colour to begin with and have not included those here.  The four below are a sample of what Marilyn got up to and the one above was a twenty minute pose.

Lillias, Andrew and the NEAC Drawing School

We couldn't have had more different models over the past two sessions and my approach to drawing them was quite different too. Andrew struck a standing pose and we all wondered if he could hold it for the hour.  He was defiant and turned out to manage it with ease.  I only noticed his thumb moving back and forth, which I assume was a coping strategy for what must have needed intense concentration.  I wish I knew anatomy as Andrew was an anatomical study, for sure. 

Andrew's second pose was kneeling but the structure of what I saw and drew of his position was similar without being exactly the same.  I was looking down on him a little bit in the second pose. What was fun about drawing Andrew was that he had so much attitude and it was that I wanted to hone in on.

Lillias couldn't have been more natural. Paul was painting a portrait so she stayed in the pose for the whole 1 hr 45 mins. As I look at it, I think that if I'd had time to really look (which is what I should be doing during the tea break) I would have realised that defining the room probably gets in the way of our interaction with the subject. Lillias had some bright light on her cheek that I failed to carve adequately as well.

I intended to move around and do a series of drawings but it's so easy to get carried away.

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The Long Pose, Heatherleys and colour studies with Sarah, NEAC Drawing School

Sarah, charcoal on paper 53 x 75 cm

I arrived late at Heatherleys and found a place far back with a slice of the model between two easels. The light was beautiful and Sarah was fun to draw. Antony Williams let me get on with my drawing for the most part, his insights, or even just having him stand next to me, made me see things I needed to change. I could see better than I am able at the Learning Centre, in a light infused space and I never tired.  I stuck to willow charcoal, using my various erasers, measuring distances in my head, looking for shapes, trying to see marks to make, squinting most of the time, I'm sure. All in all, above was probably just under four hours of drawing and looking.

Pose 1 9.10.17, pastel on paper 16.5.x 16.5 cm

The model was on a stool for the first pose and I was very close.  I mostly just put wedges of colour together, having a hard time fitting the part of the model I wanted on the page onto the paper. I did a lot of erasing with my putty rubber.  It was a joy to use colour ater a day of charcoal, though.

I think the top pose is more successful, I had longer.  I was looking down on the model for the second pose and began with an almost  flourescent pink chalk. As I drew I kept thinking about the Buddha I had bought at the car boot sale and drawn recently and that was a little distracting, but made me smile.

Pose 1 9.10.17, pastel on paper 16.5.x 16.5 cm

Getting the whole figure in

When I begin a drawing I don't look long enough before I begin, and I am sure I was taught to do this.  The truth is I am usually so excited by what I see in front of me that I begin drawing what interests me and work from there. Antony Williams, who taught a portrait workshop at the NEAC recently, begins with the nose.  I don't have a go-to body part! This time I made a few marks at the head and the feet to fit everything in.

 At my classes with Mick Kirkbride on Friday evenings I felt self concious because I didn't always get the whole body on the page. Of course there is no reason to always contain the whole figure on the page, and Mick encourages us to say zero in on the chest, but that sort of intentionality hasn't always been part of my practice. The composition is creted by holding up two fingers and squinting through it and then just getting going intuitively. So today while I was warming up I decided to get the whole figure on the page.  The portrait black and whites are both ten minute poses and the paper is A3.  The square in 30 x 30 and that was a five minute pose.  Mick taught me a system to help me do this and if I look carefully and count at the start I can do it!

The last pose was 30 minutes and I wanted to work in colour.  I also wanted to use some new chalk pastels I had bought for a song at Atlantis art. I started with my thin vine charcoal and thought about the tones then started with the turquoise and was quickly juggling orange, blue and puce.

Marilyn

Marilyn - 30 min pose, 15 x 16 cm pastel on paper

 We began today's life drawing with three 5 minute poses with Marilyn holding the same pose but at three distances (see last three images). When asked, the person working next to me, Roy Freer, said that he didn't take any notice of the scale issue; Sue had inteded it as a scale exercise. Like Roy, I was just drawing, first in black and white, then in colour. What I noticed was that the light was very different on the figure as she moved forward.  Up close Marilyn was mostly just skin and it all had a similar colour. 

I tried to find the figure today, making lots of marks before I discovered her. although I was drawing straight on and there was nothing behind the model, I looked hard at the background and tried to discover something interesting but 'real'.  

I am excited to be heading to see a Milton Avery exhibit in London next week. I can see that I have been looking at him in at least one of these drawings.

Marilyn - 10 min pose, 10 x 14 cm, pastel on paper

Marilyn - 10 min pose 9 x 8 1/2 cm, pastel on paper 

Marilyn - 5 min pose,  (distant) 12 x 25 cm, charcoal on paper

Marilyn - 5 min pose, (mid distance), 9 1/2 x 14 cm, pastel on paper

Marilyn - 5 min pose (close up) 11 1/2 x 19 1/2 cm, pastel on paper

What do you focus on in 15 minutes?

Sue, who has organised and modelled for our life drawing group since it began more than 20 years ago, has been asking for 15 minute poses lately. Fifteen minutes is long enough to get alot down but for me, it is also enough time to tighten up and lose the energy of the pose. Drawing is such a relational thing, with every mark the betweenness narrows and it's easy to mush all your marks into something similar. Today I was thinking about the mark making in particular.

I began with a black and white drawing but aimed to work in colour for the session.  Esme, the model, is angular and although beautiful to draw, her poses can feel a little more posed than some of our veteran models. Her first few poses were standing and getting the model onto a square piece of paper without making her diminutive is always tricky.  Some people insist on getting all of the model in the frame.  I was taught that that wasn't essential, and for me it's all about the shapes. Each of the drawings is about 15 cm square on prepared cartridge paper.  Some have schminke pastel ground mixed with a bit of acrylic.  In others I have rubbed pastel into the paper and fixed it with surgical spirit.

I've put the drawings up in the order they were made. Each was a 15 minute pose.

Another view of Gurney in Somerset

Another drawing session where I used an image (taken recently) and  projected it on the wall; I translated the colours into tone and line. This drawing is 9 x 13.5.  Next I tried to change tone into colours using a previous colour study. I cut and fused the shapes as I saw them.  The initial result didn't suggest the space or the light so I cut it all up again and tried to feel the space and use some but not all of the elements in the drawing to suggest what to do next. When sewing, I made a conscious effort not to repeat myself and to use the stiches as lines more intentionally than sometimes. The edges of the fused plastic were not even once I'd made a back.  It was a wiggly organic form and I thought it might be a fragment, but in the end that didn't work.

Exploring the rectangle

A few nights ago I woke at some ungodly hour and had one of those 'eureka moments'.  I realised that there was a way to feed my over-arching interest in breaking up the space of a rectangle with areas of colour and my need to work in lots of mediums and ways simultaneously that might not end up in an amateurish mishmash.

What if I hone in on motifs that break up the space in ways that remind me of what I like in my fused plastic collages and use those to draw from. Once I have a drawing I can use it as stimulus for whichever medium I feel the urge to work in.  It makes things simpler (eliminates lots of motifs) and hopefully will give me a body of work that holds together.

I took lots of photos in just that way while in Somerset and my home and studio are rich with material.  Today, to begin the theme I projected a photo of a hallway of a house we stayed in in Somerset on the wall of the studio and set up my drawing board some way away.  I tried to think of the rhythm of the place.  I wanted to get lots of information so I could make choices later. I was documenting the space first. I looked at Annabel Gault and Emily Nelligen.

I didn't want to use local colour as a starting point when I began my follow-up monoprint.  I looked at some Deibenkorn and tried to keep the rhythm idea and to select harmonious colours that would play in the rectangle in a believable way.  This was the first Akua Ink print made with wet paper in my new press. I rushed things a bit, because I was impatient to see how it would work. I am delighted with the intesity of the colour and can see lots of possibilities, even if this print is a bit lame. And I forgot to work backwards!

In a 2nd print (too awful to show), I used the ghost and worked with the leftover ink, working backwards this time.  I'm not too keen on the colours, cleaning brushes with Akua is a bit of a hassle and needs more determination on my part! 

Trying to think like Simon (Carter)

About 16 of us are painting the space with Simon Warren at Firstsite. I'm interested in discovering how Simon takes a drawing back into the studio and works it up into a painting.  I find it difficult to create something 'real' without being terribly literal. 

At Firstsite we have been going into the space (an architectural space) and drawing.  At the first session we did quick drawings and then painted from those, using those school watercolour boxes.  We just had a go.  Unsurprisingly, I found myself falling back on my literal approach, almost copying the drawing.  I didn't use local colour but I didn't like the results at all anyway.  

I felt uncomfortable on a number of levels.  Although drawing anything is great, I do not feel inspired by the Firstsite space, particularly.  And when Simon used the word 'domestic' about the way I had collapsed the space, thinking shapes etc, rather than using the available space to inform the drawing accurately, I felt a bit trapped.  Nevertheless, the point of the class, for me, is to look from a different perspective and to explore the problem of studio painting.

I enjoyed the second week more, as I let go and felt and then drew the architectural space (in one drawing)  for pretty much all of the session.

We've just returned from Cornwall where the landscape is archetectural in its feel and scale.  Now there's a subject I can relate to.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to make drawings as we walked in Lands End, Penzance and elsewhere, but I did photograph as I walked.  

On the drive home I wondered about projecting the photos onto the studio wall to feel the scale of the landscape and then to draw from it, trying to take Simon's approach to heart. Tomorrow I will take one of these drawing and see what they do in paint. 

My Firstsite drawing suggeted Diebenkorn to Simon.  The one below might be a bit more Milton Avery.