Life drawing Session 1

    Its been a long time since I've participated in doing life drawings, and this session proved that I am more out of practice then I thought. We was given a choice of loose paper on a easel, or to use a sketch book, to me a sketch book is a better way of keeping work. We started with 5 minute warms up exercises. The first was to capture our models gesture in a max of 10 marks, no feathering sketching (which is very much my way of drawing), secondly was to place as much detail as possible without removing the pencil from the paper. The third was to think of how we can use rectangles to understand form. giving a more 3D presence. As for the forth, we was only to outline any shadows on our life model, and the last was to use any of the previous techniques (I used the continuous line one).

5 Min Exercises

     Following these exercises, we moved on to 30 minute stretches. We was asked to try an use correct measuring techniques and capture as much detail as possible, keeping in mind perspective and gesture.

1st 30 Min Pose

2nd 30 Min Pose

    These started well, but I may have lost my way with correctly measuring proportions. Our model was leaning more on her elbow in the second pose, that gesture seems to become a bit lost. Also, I seem to be making my model much too big for the page, missing her feet. However, doing these life drawing sessions is a good starting point in understanding anatomy, and next time by taking more care I will hopefully fit the whole model on to the page. Gaining the correct measurements will improve more the measuring techniques are used, and perspective will fall into place.

Shadow Only Charcoal

Our last one to cool down was to just capture the harsh shadows, putting light as forefront. This one was a lot harder, using charcoal so to smudge softened some definition.