More life drawing - week 3

3 x 5 minute poses

Yes, it's all I'm doing creatively at the moment. I'm really enjoying it though, more than I've ever enjoyed life drawing before. I love working so big and loosely with charcoal. Was never able to get on with it at college but I just love it now. Need to get some fixative before the drawings vanish though.
 

15 minutes

Some good exercises in foreshortening today. Quite pleased with the arms and hands in the 15 minute drawing above.
 

1 hour

Getting to grips with creating tone with the charcoal; some nice tonal areas on the longer pose. Proportion issues though - that foot is way too big. I've discovered that my drawings get bigger as I work further down the page... Could this be because I'm tall and the lower sections of the paper are therefore further away? I extend the easel as high as I can but they never seem to be quite tall enough...

Looking back over my drawings from the last three weeks, I think I am improving. Lots more work to do of course; there always will be, but I think I'm heading in the right direction.

Life drawing week 2

1 hour 10 minutes

And here are today's offerings. We started with two two-minute drawings with our other hand (left in my case). Didn't get a lot down but it was fun to do and I quite like some of the marks.

Next came three five-minute poses (back to drawing with my right hand) starting with a crouched position and rising to standing. Well into it by the third pose as you can see from the shading. I enjoy layering my drawings though easy to get confused. I quite like the sense of movement in this one.

Finally a long pose of about 1 hour 10 minutes. Not a bad drawing though there are some serious proportion issues going on; the model's head is too small and I struggled for some time with the lower leg in the foreground. I'm beginning to get back into the swing of it though after all these years.

2 x two-minute poses drawn with left hand

3 x five-minute poses rising from crouched position

Back to basics. Again

Whenever I feel stuck with my work, I guess my default position is to think about technique and focus on that for a while. So I'm going to concentrate on drawing for a bit, something which is hugely important and that I don't do enough of.

Started life drawing classes last week - great fun. It's been about five years since I last went so I'm pretty rusty but it was great to draw freely and on a large scale. I haven't done that since I was at college which is way too long.