virtual drawing group: drawing from life

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Drawing through a shower curtain and what happened next

Zoom life drawing continues. I have been part of Mick Kirkbride's Insight Art zoom life drawing since it started. It is absolutely brilliant! Today Mick hung a shower curtain so we could barely see the model. Mick is an advocate of struggling with the materials. What he didn't know was that my studio was bright today and it was even harder for me to make out the model (behind an opaque/translucent curtain), projected onto the wall.

After I drew the three sketches behind the curtain, I thought how the ambiguity and blockiness of the figures recalled Bonnard. I took out a book of Bonnard paintings and opened to a page that had similar colours to what I was looking at and drew the model before me.

16 x 16cm (about an hour) pastel on paper prepared with tinted pastel ground

Bonnard - Nude with Chair

10 minute sketch through a translucent/opaque shower curtain.

Sunday, March 4, 2018

unimpeded by weather, I work from life

Valentina, oil on panel 30 x 40 cm

It was certainly cold and maybe even already snowing on Monday but I was keen to make mono prints in preparation for my Friday NEAC session. I decided I wasn't going to work backwards and found myself using whatever supplies I had (I had forgotten many) to make quick studies of Emily. I had to use the only paper I had, cartridge, and a metal spoon which, incidentally gets very hot when you rub with it…

Back in the studio I printed the ghosts using release agent, wiping it away to get some pure whites back where I had wiped previously. I also printed one that had been hanging around from the week before, with Esme. That seemed to work!

On Friday, even though we were advised not to travel, I went to London. The morning was spent at the British Museum and after seeing the Victorian photos, I went to the Mall where I made a few prints, following on from Monday. The print below is the best of the bunch and IMHO one of my best!

And on Saturday, I was back in London at Heatherley's for a brilliant painting workshop with Peter Clossick. This time I braved snow and bus replacements, travelling for 7 1/2 hours for the workshop! Still, totally worth it. The suggested technique was similar to the way I make a mono print to begin, putting on a neutral and then removing the light with a rag. I was very susprised how thinly I painted after that, considering I was taught by Peter. I had imagined working in thick paint… I think I never really got the structure aspect of the technique but I was enjoying what the paint was doing and was chasing the light. At the beginning I had decided to make two paintings. Peter stopped me with the top one (reclining nude) about an hour before the end of the session. I didn't resolve the head but it has triggered a chain reaction of ideas. Hopefully more soon!