Online life drawing

I love life drawing, but all classes were cancelled during the lock down. There was a huge boom in life drawing via Zoom, with models desperate to carry on working somehow. I’d never done it before, but it does feel a bit like very soft porn at first. Looking at naked people over the Internet. But it works.

There seem to be two approaches. Live or saved videos of models posing, or still photos to work from. Pros and cons to both. One definite pro is that models can adopt extremely foreshortened poses, with the camera below their feet or over their heads or in very difficult/unstable poses which they can’t hold for more than a few seconds. These are just a few. There are so many that I have been binding them into collections.

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Just a sample of work from online model sessions.

Lockdown challenge

Very early in the lockdown, when we were all meant to stay home, our local art shop, Pegasus Art (Pegasusart.co.uk) set a daily challenge to keep us focused. I didn’t do all of them, but they were a stimulus, which was welcome. These are a selection of what I produced.

Old Harry Rocks from Studland Beach. Pastel pencil on board

Sikkimese prayer flags. Pastel pencil on board.

Skinny dipping in the sunshine. Acrylic on canvas. (I gave this picture to the swimmer)

Self portrait. Pastel pencil on board

Donkey. Soft pastel on Canson paper

Carcassonne. Pencil sketch

Summer’s day. A really poor digital sketch.

Afternoon life class

Working on pastels today, with an excellent model. The same one we had for the workshop on “Drawing Like Raphael”. Can hold a difficult pose and looks very renaissance, if you ignore the tattoos and, shall we just say, acoutriments. First a white chalk structural drawing, then colour applied and blended in, which would not be my chosen technique, but it can work.

Thursday drawing

I was not pleased with these after I drew them, but in reflection they aren’t so bad. I am not a flower artist…

The flowers are actually under the muslin, which was our first exercise, just using white chalk on black paper.

Then all was revealed and I floundered, trying a pastel drawing of the whole lot. It really didn’t go anywhere.

So finally I just drew the hyacinth in charcoal, and when it looked reasonable, I scrubbed in some pastel colour. I find the problem with floral painting is that there is no anatomy or structure I can wrap my mind round, so my hand doesn’t know what it is trying to do.

Drop in life class

I went to the Saturday life class on Stroud today, to get my hand in. Drawing a good looking young man with very long, unkempt hair. Excellent model, he could hold a pose indefinitely. He reminded me of me, many, many years ago.

A long love affair with a drawing

Just over two years ago I produced one of my favourite drawings at a life class. I called her Neuroscience because she actually was a neuroscientist, taking a gap, working at an art centre between finishing her bachelor’s degree and starting her master’s.

I love the relaxed pose and the thoughtful expression. I’ve put her into an exhibition and was relieved that she didn’t sell. I don’t really want to part with her.

I’ve based more works on this image than any other I have done. The first was a mixed media work, with rectangles of handmade paper pasted onto a canvas and then over-painted with acrylic.

There was no plan to this image, I had no idea what I was going to do, but I loved the outcome. With a great imaginative flair, I called her Neuroscience 2. She hangs in our bathroom, which seems appropriate for a nude.

Next I tried a pastel on pastel board. Quite a different effect and I love the colour, but it’s not my favourite of the series. Yes, Neuroscience 3…

After that I discovered relief printing for the first time, and a version of my girl was one of my first linocuts, and still one of my favourites. I’ve tried her in various colours and with modifications to the block, which is one of the pleasures of printing. Yup, Neuroscience 4.

I let her lie for a long while after that, but recently she returned, in a very grand way. I’ve become obsessed with graphite pencil drawing over the last few weeks. After a variety of still lifes and copies of photos and paintings, I thought it was time to give my girl another outing. This time I thought I would exploit the potential of pencil for intricate detail to give her a complete figure and some sort of context. It all got a bit out of hand because you can keep modifying pencil if you use good paper. I added and subtracted all sorts of elements, including a large Indian bronze bowl, which eventually bit the dust.

Below is the finished image, with some of the development work below. I needed a new title, so I think she is now the Queen of the Nudists. She’s hanging over my drawing board.

Girls on show

These three girls will be going into an exhibition of life drawing in Stroud next March. The two on the left were done about two years ago, I think, and she dozing on the right about nine months ago. All are various combinations of soft pastel and charcoal.

Tuesday evening drop in life class

I went along to the Stroud life drawing session tonight. Not many people because of the atrocious weather. But a lovely model who I have drawn before. She has wonderful hair. One day I will just try to draw that. A pleasure not to be drawing  another middle aged man. 

Life class with no model

Our model was ill, so Mark Kelland, our tutor, modelled for us. He took his jumper off and told us that was all we were getting…

Working in pastels. Drawing a clothed model is really quite challenging, all that coloured cloth and folds.

Portraits at Tuesday life class

We were attempting pastel portraits today. I used the vertical feathering technique I have tried on various other subjects, and it seemed to work quite well. Is my preferred pastel technique now.