Some actual drawing - finally

(This one got accidentally trod on!)

I was having a complete drawing block. I couldn't think of anything I wanted to draw. So last night, despite being exhausted from a sleepless Sunday night (thanks Richard, and if you ever snore like that again I'm divorcing you) I dragged myself along to life drawing class. I was glad I went - I enjoyed it as much as I always do - but I can see that in the five weeks or so since I've been I've really taken a step backwards and I found it very difficult.

What made things harder was that the previous group to use the studio, a theatre group, had left a huge weird steel structure in the middle of the room. We couldn't move it so we had to work around it, and it obstructed the view of the model which was annoying.


This was a warmup sketch - we did lots of one minute poses but this was different because you had to use your "wrong" hand. So I drew this with my left hand in about a minute. I never tried to draw with my left hand before.

Some more drawings. I have to be honest and say I don't actually like any of them, but the important thing is I actually did some drawing and feel like the mental block has gone.

"Hand night" at life drawing class

Every week, we study a different aspect of the body or a particular method of drawing. This week's class was about drawing hands - something a lot of people find very difficult (but bizarrely, something I really like doing). We talked a lot about the anatomy of the hand and wrist (for example, the wrist and knuckles are always on the same plane, no matter which way the hand is turned). We did lots of very quick one minute sketches of the model's hands, and then a few longer drawings. It was a fantastic class.

Next week is the last class in the ten week course, and will be dealing with feet and foreshortening. Then I'll have to join the Monday class for seasoned pros. Not sure how I feel about moving away from the beginner class!

Quick warm-up sketch of my own hand

Pretty quick drawing of my classmate Anya's hand (about 5 minutes)

Final drawing of the night of the model Steve's hand - about 20 minutes

Life drawing - fun with charcoal.

Last night's class was all about light and shade. The room was slightly dimmer than usual and the teacher used two bright lamps to create strong areas of light and shade on the model, Leo.



I did this first one with charcoal pencils, which I hadn't used much before but I really like them. For someone like me who gets herself covered from head to toe with charcoal when using the uncompressed sticks, they're a great idea!

This next one was a bit different. While we were drawing, the teacher prepared a piece of paper for each of us by covering it with charcoal and then brushing the surface with a household paintbrush to create an even tone. Then we were to "draw" the basic shape of the model using a putty rubber to remove the charcoal and leave light areas, and then add the detail back in with more charcoal. The vertical lines are from scratches on the drawing board underneath.



I loved this technique. It's easier to start drawing when the paper isn't bright white, for some reason. I love the drawing (and I don't say that about my work very often) but I think it's more because I enjoyed doing it so much than because I like the end result. When we'd finished, the teacher picked out my drawing to talk about and said some very nice things about it :-) Throughout school, I don't think I ever had an art teacher say anything nice about something I had done. I felt like a five year old being given a gold star, I was so pleased! And I did get myself covered in charcoal, including my trousers and the entire left side of my face.

Here's a bonus sketch of our Elvis. This only took a minute, I was on my way out to class, but he looked so cute I had to grab an envelope and do a quick doodle.

Sketching in the British Museum

My life drawing class left the studio and headed to the British Museum on Friday. It was great fun although a bit overwhelming - so much to draw it was difficult to know where to start. We were in the Greek Room (home of the Elgin Marbles). Everyone took a different approach - most people picked one or two things to draw and spent a lot of time on them. I was like a kid in a sweet shop and wanted to draw everything, so I did lots of rough sketches. The time passed so quickly... I'm going to go back and draw there again soon.

Three goddesses from the east pediment of the Parthenon

Horse sculpture from the chariot of the Moon God Seline - also from east pediment of the Parthenon

Dionysus

A bloke fighting a centaur (couldn't find it on the museum website)

Centaur with missing arms and legs (no link for him either)

Life drawing

Life drawing class was fantastic last night. The model was a bit older (late 40s to early 50s) and curvier than the ones I've seen so far. We were learning about legs and how the joints work, and especially the knees. Very interesting. We were made to stand up and waggle our legs around to see the field of movement each joint has, but I'm double jointed and my legs do things they probably shouldn't, and I think I got some funny looks :)


The pose on the bottom left (and the scrappy sketches across the bottom) of the page above was one that gave me immense trouble. The way the model was sitting made her hips look wider than they really were, and it was very much a case of drawing what you see, not what you know, but sometimes it's so difficult!

A few more above.

I want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who give their input on the hot cross bun debate! I got lots of emails and some replies on EDM as well as your comments here and they were pretty evenly split between "hot cross buns are cakes, don't eat them" and "no, they're bread, there's yeast in them, keep scoffing". So to settle it once and for all I asked my mum, and she thinks they're bread. And if my mum says it then it must be true, right?

However in life drawing last night the usual fabulous array of fabulous biscuits was there and I didn't have a single one. I bet I start displaying a halo soon.

Things and stuff.

What have I been up to since my last post?

Well... I've been crocheting again, and I have a new crochet book. It's Tiny Yarn Animals, by Tamie Snow who is the brains behind Roxycraft which is a website anyone who's into crochet will no doubt recognise. I hoard amigurumi books but seldom actually follow the patterns because I find most of them too big, and I really prefer tiny little toys. Tamie's book, as the name suggests, is full of patterns for tiny little animals and they are all cute enough that I actually want to make them. I made this hippo for today's Thing-a-day. He's from a pattern in the book but of course I abandoned the pattern and did my own thing after a while. My husband named him Gregory - why I have no idea, but I think it suits him. I also learned how to do an invisible decrease from PlanetJune today - it's absolutely shocking to think that I've been crocheting for this long, and I own so many crochet books that no doubt give instructions for this, and I never knew it existed till now. And it makes a huge difference.

What else? Well yesterday was Valentine's Day, but my husband is a very vocal hater of the greeting card industry. So instead of buying him a card I drew him a picture. I should explain that he's a big Resident Evil fan, and also happens to work for a very well-known videogames company who make a certain zombie-filled game. And he is definitely better than zombies (although I do like zombies too).

He did get me a card though - the first year I've one that said "wife"!



Instead of going out and paying over the odds for a meal in a packed restaurant, we spend the day in the V&A, which is one of my favourite places. And I did an EDM challenge when I was there, which was #38 - draw in a museum. Unfortunately it didn't turn out as I wanted. It was very busy and people kept walking in front of me and blocking my view, and eventually I got annoyed, scribbled a few very rough details, and left in a sulk. This is a bust of Charles II and I'm posting a photo of the original beside it - can you tell the difference?

My second life drawing class was on Friday and it was as enjoyable as the first one. We moved on to using different 3D shapes to represent different body parts - cylinders, spheres, cones etc. My drawings are still not looking all that much like actual people! It was very very difficult to get half decent photos of my drawings, due to the lack of light in this apartment. I ended up having to put them on the floor and rig up a tripod (my husband's awesome Manfrotto that I wish was mine) so it was kind of kneeling over the paper, then using the brightest lamp we have as sidelighting and using a remote release to get a long exposure although I think I ended up using flash after all. And the photos are still absolutely terrible even after some photoshopping! There must be an easier way!


One thing I am happy about is that having upgraded to Photoshop CS4, I can finally shoot in Raw, which is making me want to go out and photograph everything.

Finally, the socks are done! Not only that but I've actually worn them out and they haven't fallen apart, and are so comfy that ordinary socks now feel rubbish. I've started another pair for my husband in some lovely blue yarn.