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.

The quiet of Emily

13.5 x 14 cm

 Our models are all very different. With one, you might get the feeling that you have caught them in the moment between something else; another tells a story with a shoulder.  With Emily, it's as though she stops time. Today I was using the side of my pastel to approximate areas of colour and light.  I used my eraser very little and just drew over to make adjustments.  I like the loose peaceful feel of some of what I drew. The first four sketches are ten minute poses.  The last was 25 mins.  

13.5 x 14cm

13.5 x 14cm

16 x 16 cm

16 x 15.5 cm

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.

Trial & Error in LIfe Drawing

Oops, I forgot my roller again today so the monotypes are greyer than I like. I was working on a small plate 7.5 x 10cm today, though, so I was able to be more exact than I usually can be in a 15 minute pose. 

When I make monotypes the marks I make become one of the key aspects of the work. In another 15 minute pose I made the drawing on top first and then spent the remaining five minutes being specific about the marks.

In a drawing session a few weeks ago, I remembered my roller but the first print was disappointing, the plate was beautiful, but the print was a let down.  A few days later I rolled some release agent onto the plate and although it is weak in value, it has more of the feel from the plate.

Sometimes working back into a failed print or drawing gives me a head start for a different drawing.  Originally this was a print of another model.  I put some clear gesso over it and worked back in with pastels.  although I am not convinced of the colour, the overall feel is much better than the original failed print!

Monday Drawings

A Selection of 2016 Monday drawings

Erin, pastel on paper 6 x 6

Since the New Year I haven't missed a Monday morning.  I get to the venue early, to help hang the plastic  in front of the window, to roll out the rug and to get a space on the side of the room where you can see the model.  If you are on the other side the model is backlit. Sue organises the sessions and we usually have some fast poses 1-2 minutes or 15 mins of a moving model and some longer poses, 10 - 30 minutes.

We have a range of models (in terms of age, hair colour, height, size, flexibility, agility). Many of the models have been coming for as long as I have been going (more than 15 years). Erin has been modeling for us for a year or two.  She can hold a pose in standing but doesn't 'fold' well.

Like Erin, Marilyn is athletic with long legs. Marilyn never moves and is always enthusiastic to push herself to hold poses until her feet turn blue.

Marilyn, pastel on paper, 6 x 6

Esme, pastel on paper 6 x 6

Esme has modelled for us twice.  Like the other two, she is brilliant to draw. She makes strong poses. Each model has her own character (we have a few men too) and for me, the trick is to stay loose enough to capture it and to avoid getting bogged down by the local colour and the setting.

Drawing in drawings

When I was in my teens I learned that anything is a still life and any place is an interior or a landscape.  You just have to look hard to see the magic.  We had a new model, Esme, last week.  It is hard to draw someone new.  But it's also exciting.  Someone like me, who enters into every drawing as though I have never drawn before, really has no idea what will happen when the new model begins to emerge on the page.  Local colour is repetitive… it's the same rust coloured cushion, the same white radiator, the same grey brown floor.  I shift the colours one direction and the other colours follow, if I'm lucky.

Yesterday I turned the page with Esme to the front of my pad and put it next to a new jug of flowers  I'd treated myself to.  I found a scarf I'd bought in Edinburgh at a second hand shop, a bowl from a different charity shop, my scarf and gloves and celery-coloured pumpkin I'd grown. I love the chaos of finding the rhythm and the energy without drawing the forms. Both drawings are 6 x 6"

I also love taking drawings or books and using them as objects in subsequent drawings!

Monday's model

Emily was asked to pose for 15 minutes today.  After a summer hiatus of drawing from the model, I could have used some quick poses to loosen me up.  Instead I began with charcoal on A3, measuring with my eyes, drawing, redrawing, teaching myself to LOOK carefully, trying to identify what makes Emily 'Emily'.

I used pastel for the last three drawings, this was the final one. I drew over something else.  It's 13 x 22 cm. My new fixative darkened it a bit.

Pasteling Over

I arrived late at my drawing group today, caught behind a tractor.  The first pose had already begun. It was a ten minute pose and I didn't think it would be worth it to use a piece of my prepared paper so I found a pastel that wasn't working and began to transform it into a new person, a new pose, new light.  In the past I have wiped the old image away and have been left with a muddy background.  This time I simply began working on top. I did that all morning and these were the most successful products.   I like the feeling of time and the richness of the layering.

Repeating a pose

The format of my weekly life drawing group has changed. For one, there is no more tea. Sigh. because of this, the fixed timings are no longer fixed.  After break we used to have two twenty minute poses. Now the break is ten minutes and at no particular time, so it's a little more fluid. Today the consensus was to do a series of the same three poses three times.  Timings were 2, 5 and 15 minutes. Of course the poses weren't exactly the same.  The top drawing is 6 x 6 and was a 15 minute pose.  the two altered book pages (5 x 8) were each 5 minutes.  The bottom drawing 4.5 x 8.5 was another 15 minute pose.   

Some of my recent life drawings

Emily 

Marilyn

Emily

Marilyn

Marilyn

Marilyn

Sue

I went to a gallery recently to show my work and although they were really positive about some of my work, the person I spoke with felt that my life drawings were too 'traditional'.  

My wonderful life drawing class is a mix of different kinds of artists, former draughtsman, artists who simply love to draw and abstract painters work alongside each other. When we draw, there are gasps and sighs and we all talk about the shapes.

Drawing in colour

In the split second after a model strikes a pose, when you know you will only have minutes, to tens of minutes to say something, grabbing colours can be almost arbitrary. I usually start with three colours and then choose the next few to get a range of values and to complement my first choices. Sometimes the model is really quick and I barely have time to choose the first few and rely on what is in my hand to begin again.

I am starting to draw in order to paint, although in that split second I don't think I'm thinking about anything like that.  I am just trying to get the shapes in the rectangle to work together.

 Not all poses or choices work, but a piece of something unsuccessful may inform something later.