Life drawing at Bath Artist Studios...

 10 minute sketch

I thought it was about time I got back to some life drawing after yet another long gap without doing any at all! So yesterday I went along to the six hour life day that happens every couple of months at Bath Artist Studios. It's been well over a year since I last went along to a life day and I was seriously rusty! But it was great to get drawing again with a good model and to chat to other like-minded artists.

A life drawing day once every blue moon isn't quite the same as a regular run of weekly sessions, but it is so hard to find both time and money to keep up a weekly course. I think I will try and get to a life session somewhere once a month if I can - I do love it, though it is always so challenging...

The first sketch above was actually the very last quick one I did right at the end as an afterthought  in the last ten minutes, but actually its the drawing I liked best.

Here's some of the very rough and ready five minute warm up sketches that we started with, trying to get my eye and hand back in:  

And then one of the ten minute sketches (below), trying to make more of an effort to take time to measure properly which wasn't entirely successful!

Finally two different viewpoints of the last longer pose (in fact the first example at the top of this post was a third view of this same pose)

 45 minute sketch

This 45 minute one was a lovely pose, but I felt my handling of the charcoal was very murky and laboured so it isn't one I particularly like. The 1 hour hour one below had some lovely lighting (with a very tricky bit of foreshortening on the right leg that rather stumped me!)

1 hour sketch

So there we are, not the most spectacular results but great to make a way back into drawing from life again. I am itching to do some more now - I learn so much from this and I really have missed it.

A friend to my surprise recently asked me, don't you get embarrassed by the nudity? The truth is it has never occurred to me that there would be anything to be embarrassed about. I have been life drawing on and off for the last 18 years and have never felt uncomfortable with any of the models I have drawn. In fact quite often you can chat to a model and completely forget that they haven't got any clothes on! 

I just become immediately absorbed by the line and form, light and shade, and abstract composition of shape the body makes and try to capture that on the paper. 

The human form I have always found a beautiful and fascinating subject to draw, the dynamic and energy of body language and expression in a pose, the energy and movement, tension or subtle poise all express so much. And then there's the fascination of muscle and sinew, the skeletal frame beneath, the way the light excentuates the hidden structures.

I wonder for any of you who love drawing the figure, what is it that you enjoy most about it?

More Life Drawing at Bath Artists Studios...

5 minute pose

Firstly, thankyou to all who left such encouraging comments on my Dragon spread, its really great to get feedback and I really appreciate your words and thoughts! I haven't put the silver leaf on that one yet but I have started the 2nd spread... I'm only doing three, just enough to give an impression of what the finished book would be like because I know editors are likely to want things changed!

So anyway, yesterday I went to another six hour life drawing workshop, this time at Bath Artist Studios which I hadn't been to before. It was great, a big life room but with a friendly, relaxed kind of atmosphere, lots of private artists studios as well and a big common room with comfy sofas and a kettle!
I haven't done any proper drawing since Salisbury back in August so I was quite rusty as usual and it took a while to get back up to speed!
We started with some 5 minute warm ups (though I prefer to start with even quicker gestures of one or two minutes usually) here's some of them...

This is my usual approach of line, gesture and frantic measuring, which means I don't get a great deal down in the 5 minutes especially before I've found my stride!
The tutor suggested an approach I hadn't tried before which was to use a broad flat edge of charcoal to 'block in' the mass or shape of the whole form very quickly and loosely and then work in with line afterwards...
Heres a couple of 2 minute examples, quite interesting...

So I thought I'd try starting with this approach on a longer pose and see how it went... it certainly got me a lot further on a lot quicker and simplified the measuring to some extent. And it did leave me more time for rendering and enjoying the shadows... this pose below was 40 minutes...

The last part if the afternoon was one long pose, so I started with some very quick rough prelims to find all the lines through the form...

Then worked in charcoal trying to remember all of the various techniques I have learned over the last few years, but still had a great deal of trouble with the bent knee!

This one (above) was about an hour and a half, (I think her head and right arm are a little out of proportion though!) Finally I decided to have a bit of a play with dip pen and ink, with some white gouche highlights for the last 10 minutes - its great fun, but I find you have to be bold, and just go for it! All in all a very enjoyable day!

Life drawing at the Barn Studio...

Hello folks! It's been a while since I last posted, and actually a while since any actual artwork happened either! Time and energy have not been with me, and of course any time gathered and hoarded I spend catching up with my children...
Theres been a couple of trips to the seaside, a Robin Hood day at Brokers Wood, playground trips, bike rides and two new pet baby Guinea Pigs to get to know!

Robin Hood and Maid Marian

Meet Sparkles...

and Fluffy...!

But with the school holidays nearly over I've been itching to pick up some brushes again. I still haven't had chance to try out the new Russian watercolours I got at Art in Action back in July, and to my frustration haven't so much as picked up a pencil since...
So what better way to get going again than by a six hour all day life drawing workshop! This was at a new studio in Salisbury run by two great tutors with quite different approaches - the morning was tutored by animator Matthew Dean, and the afternoon by fine artist and illustrator Sean Slater who taught me a huge amount about life drawing a couple of years back and really put me on the right track.
I was painfully rusty and out of sorts, especially after driving an hour to get there, but it was a brillant workshop and a lot of information went in even if not much of anything decent came out of the pencil!

These were the best of them over the six hours starting with some very quick warm ups ranging from 10 seconds to about 3 minutes...

10 seconds for this one!

2 minutes

30 seconds

1 minute

1 minute

10 seconds and 1 minute I think

30 seconds

These next two I really enjoyed and were something I'd never done before - the model crossed the room holding a sequence of one minute poses as she went, so the overlapping sketches show the continuum of the movement. Not surprisingly this was part of animater Matt's section which was all about capturing movement, and I loved it...

Sorry about my scrunckled up paper, hope you can still see what's going on!

This scruffy one below I really struggled with because it was so hard to see what was happening beneath her long hair, but both tutors seemed to like it for some reason that's beyond me, so I'll leave it in!

And finally two slightly longer poses about 30 minutes each to end the day on with mixed results...

I'll be back soon with some WIP's for you if all goes well - a time stasis machine would help though!

At last, some more Life Drawing!

2 minute warm up in dip pen and indian ink

A while ago now I lost my evening Life sessions at Stony Street Studios due to low numbers and have really missed it. Drawing the figure is something I have absolutely loved ever since my first life drawing class aged about seventeen in the wonderful old ramshackle Georgian building that was Sydney Place in Bath. It was a rambling maze of corridors and winding stairs, odd little cubby hole studios and huge high ceiling rooms with enormous windows. I learnt a lot in the few weeks I did Life drawing there, but sadly never got to do my Foundation course in that building. The year I went to Foundation college they moved it from Sydney Place with its gardens and beautiful architecture, to the basement of the old Victorian hospital in the city centre that used to be the morgue! No windows! Never mind!

Head study 2 minutes

Anyway, I am really pleased to have found a once a month Life session at Shortcombe Studio, run by an Artist friend of my mums, which will help cure my itchy fingers. It is in a beautiful setting overlooking the Chew Valley lakes, all huge skies and wide open landscapes - next time I will take my camera and show you the view...

So, my first life session in a few weeks - here's the rest of the results...

2 minute dip pen and indian ink

30 second poses

4 minute pose, back to the good old charcoal!

5 minute pose

another 5 minute pose

about 8 minutes for this one I think

10 minute pose

And finally another 10 minute pose...

I did miss the longer poses today and was itching to use my ink and gouche a bit more but its great to have a model to draw again... looking forward to next month!

Last chance to enter my Giveaway! And last night's life session, more ink than I bargained for... !

30 minute pose, ink, gouache and water.

Last weeks life session was cancelled due to low numbers, so I was relieved that this weeks went ahead, actually a very full studio with several new faces which is very promising...
I enjoyed using the ink and dip pen so much last time that I thought I'd give it another go... however I got to the studio to find I'd left my ink at home. Helen, the lovely lady who runs the studios kindly lent me some chinese ink which I found behaved totally differently to the indian ink I had just gotten used to!
Anyway, although it felt more hit and miss than my last attempts I really enjoyed scratching away on my offcuts of mountboard snaffled from work, and threw in a bit of white gouache as well.
Here's the rest of what I scraped out last night...

5 minute pose

5 minute pose

This (above) was supposed to be a 7 minute pose that was going quite well, but then quite amusingly my dip pen nib fell out - PLOP into my pot of ink! I had to fish around for it getting covered in ink in the process. By the time I sorted out the mess the pose was over...

7 minute pose

And the final 30 minute pose which I quite like I think, the ink lines are reasonably clean anyway. At the moment getting used to the new medium my attention to measuring has gone a bit to the wayside... but that's ok for now, as I get more familiar with it the accuarcy will get better and at the moment I'm more interested in the energy of the drawings.
It's funny how different mediums have such wildly different effects on your drawing style... I feel with the ink I want to draw fast with deep bold energetic strokes, hence the lack of careful measuring, but I like it!
Those of you who draw, I'd be interested to hear whether your own drawing style or approach changes depending on the medium used...

And don't forget if you'd like to enter my 'Blog-Birthday-Giveaway' to win an original Kells inspired watercolour illustration, just leave a comment on my previous post here...
I will be drawing the names out of the hat as it were tomorrow evening, so get in there quick!

Tonight's Life Drawings... without charcoal!!

What fun I had at the life session tonight!
This afternoon I went out and bought myself a dip pen with some interesting large spoon shaped nibs to try and left my nice safe charcoal at home just as I had promised myself...
And what better way to break out of the comfort zone than to use a scary new unpredictable un-rub-out-able medium! The model couldn't have been better suited to the inks... He was any illustrator or life drawer's dream model - dynamic, confident, hugely imaginative and with the strength to carry off the extremely stressful looking poses and hold them a long time too. Just so exciting to draw, a real treat!
I left the studio so exhilerated at the end of the session and grinned all the way home! I really enjoyed myself and love the dip pen.
Here's how I got on... a bit messy, a few ink blobs, but I liked it...

Warming up with a 5 minute pose to start

In this second 5 minute pose he was trying to portray falling through space, fantastic except I was so excited about getting used to the dip pen and ink all my measuring went out the window!

15 minute pose, starting to get the hang of it now...

20 minute pose, trying out a bit of brush and plain water to find the mid-tones...

Another 20 minute pose, really starting to like using the brush and water...

And the final 20 minute pose where I ran out of paper for the full stretch of it.

I'll definately carry on experimenting with ink for life drawing, I might take along some white gouache for the highlights next time and use coloured paper...

I do hope these sessions can continue, there were suppossed to be eight of us tonight but only two of us showed up. It made for a very nice relaxed atmosphere but Helen who runs the studio would not have made any where near enough to even pay for the model. Last weeks was cancelled altogether because too many people couldn't make it. Lets hope we can find some more artists to keep it going, I'd be gutted to lose it...