Life Drawing in the Absence of Models

Eve, a drawing of a statue of a bare lady, almost like life drawing

Here we are then. A couple of dreadful sketches from real life, courtesy of passengers on SouthWest Trains, and one of a beautiful statue in the V&A museum. It’s unfinished, time ran out and I had to be somewhere else. And it’s OK but not that good. More of a learning experience. So what did I learn? That I need to practice more, and that I need to measure better to get the proportions right – the body is too short and I have lost some of her feminine curves. I plan to go back and draw Eve again, but perhaps with grey paper, chalk and charcoal.

As for the commuters, both of these are unfinished because they got off the train before I had a chance to finish. I know, I know, the lesson is to draw faster. I just can’t seem to do it though!

Passenger 1, girl with a wide mouth

Passenger 2, bloke on the train

Sunbathing

Sketch of Lady Sunbathing

OK so I have mostly been sunbathing, and jolly nice it was too. But I did take a moment now and then to draw and this is probably my favourite result from the summer weeks. Don’t you just love the way the spiral binding and perforations in the paper intrude on the subject? Hmmm… Must try harder and scale things to fit.

Haven’t booked any classes for September yet. I don’t know if I can afford it really, but I will miss the benefit of a teacher to tell me what I am meant to be doing, the regular meetings with like minded people, and of course the models without whom I will once more be reduced to trying to draw people in public. I may have left it too late to get on any good courses anyway.

Strangers on a Train

Sketch of a man asleep on the train

Sketch of a woman on the train

Those crazy people the “Art Teachers” say we should practice our drawing on the way to work on the bus or train, just draw people everywhere we go. Well that’s all very well but easier said than done. For a start, once people realise you are drawing them they get all embarassed and self-conscious. I thought it was pretty much impossible until the other day I saw a woman on crowded rush hour train from Waterloo doing some intense life drawing. She was drawing everyone around her, and kept going from one to another and back round again to avoid making it too obvious that she was looking at anyone in particular. I was so impressed it made me want to try harder and do it myself, so here are a few sketches from train journeys and coffee shops. A coffee shop isn’t quite so bad, but on the train everyone can see what you’re doing and the person opposite you is so close it’s ridiculous. Still, we soldier on.

Sketch of a man in the coffee shop

Unfinished Nude

Unfinished Nude

Oh how frustrating is that! Despite being a pose held for two lessons I still didn’t get finished. I really wanted to come away with a finished painting, but the teacher kept pointing out the improvements required in the drawing and I had to make adjustments here and there. She said it was better to have a well drawn unfinished picture than a finished but wrong one and I guess she was right. But what now? The term is finished. Do I leave the picture unfinished or just buy some acrylics of my own and finish it from memory/imagination. I mean it’s not like I want to frame it and have a great big naked man on my living room wall, but I would so have liked to complete the work.

Now the question is what to do next. Of course I draw when I can but it’s so hard to paint or even draw in everyday life. I need a regular class to keep me going. More life painting, or life drawing, or maybe portraiture would be good. It would be nice to make my drawings look like the actual people they are of.

Another Bare Lady Painting (am I getting any better at this?)

Bare Lady Reclining

Well this week’s painting effort is shown. As always I found the drawing hard so, whilst bits of the picture might work OK on their own I don’t think they combine to make a believable human form as a whole. Something has gone a bit wrong with the relative positions of the head, shoulders and breasts, and the fore-shortened arm is much too small. That said, I do feel like I can see some progress at last. A few areas of the body have worked out quite well. One of the good things I learned in this lesson is to slap the paint on a bit thicker. We are using acrylics but the teacher said I was using it like watercolour and would I try using more paint. I am going to take her advice and thicken up my paintings from now on!

Paint!

After thinking that life drawing was hard, this week I started a new class in life painting and discovered that it’s a lot harder. I’ve signed up for a course at the City Lit, great as it’s half the price of Central Saint Martin’s and the materials are included. Sure enough we got three brushes each, paper and paint. There were boxes of palettes and jam jars. Everything the budding artist could wish. Er, except ability. We used only black and white acrylic paint, and had to start by using a very pale wash to “draw” the model, then once the composition was correct apply more paint. Well, by the end of the class everyone had a finished monochrome painting, everyone except me that is. I was still drawing, still trying to get the shapes and proportions right.

No picture to post on the blog for you (not that it was worth seeing!) because they get stored in a drawer in the class room. I guess this is so that at the end of the course they can pull out the crap from week one and say how much we have improved and learned. So I hope my painting improves by then!  Frustrated but not dis-heartened, I am looking forward to next week.

Last Bare Lady of the Season

Last of the season, a bare lady drawn in sanguine

For the last class this term I decided to try sanguine. It didn’t smudge as easily as I expected, perhaps because it was a stick rather than actual sanguine. I will try the real thing next.

Reclining Nude of the Week

Yet Another Reclining Nude in Pastel

The product of this week’s Life Drawing class, another pastel drawing of a bare lady. The model said she was bored after about half an hour, but strangely I find I can do this class week after week and never get bored at all.

Sketches

Roman Woman, drawn from a statue in the British Museum

A couple more lunchtime sketches of statues in the Briitsh Museum. Some people are so strange. You stand there drawing and they come right up to you and lean over to stare at your drawing. I don’t mind if they walk past slowly and take a discreet look at my picture but really! Worst of all is when they talk to you, but I find wearing an i-pod discourages all but the most determined moron.

Another statue drawing of a Roman woman from the British Museum

Another Bare Lady in Pastel

Reclining Nude

Somebody was kind enough to suggest this was a little bit like a Matisse. At least I got a slightly surreal quality from the purple paper and used a bit of pencil as well as the pastels. I think my pastels have been stored in the airing cupboard too long as they were much more crumbly than last time I used them. The brown thing isn’t really right. It was brown in reallity, but I didn’t know what colour to make it in the picture.