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.

Summer days

I’ve found a beautiful corner of the cotswold water park, where I can indulge my pleasure in skinny dipping in the sunshine. Very few people go there, although a chap got a surprise when I climbed out today. I made this water colour and coloured pencil sketch of the view whilst keeping very still. I had a beautiful, tiny blue beetle hiking across my big toe, and I didn’t want to disturb him (or her).