Susannah modelled at the final January session. Lots of nice poses, but my drawings were a bit hit and miss.
Katrina modelled at this special ‘animation’ life drawing session with short poses. Normally there are poses from 2 minutes up, but we had several 1 minute poses and (after I begged) some 30 second ones too.
We began with a sequence of 1 minute poses.
There were several longer poses dotted about through the session. The hand studies were drawn during a 15 minute pose, and the others were 10 minute poses.
It was fantastic to do some live 30 second drawings again. It’s such a good way to learn gesture and storytelling, and to train to speed up in longer poses.
Near the end of the session we had some more 1 minute poses. By this point I was able to get details down more quickly.
It was great to have more quick poses at life drawing. Hopefully this will become a regular thing, and, who knows, perhaps I’ll manage to convince everyone to do 10 second poses next time …
There were three models at this session, because Bill stepped in for the first few minutes as Francesca and Pete were delayed!
I tested out a new 10B pencil which was lovely to draw with. I liked being able to easily switch between a soft and sharp line (something I can’t seem to get the hang of with conte). It was also great for shading.
This was the last session before Christmas, so I’ve been looking forward to a special one next week with shorter poses.
Marta held some interesting poses at this session. Challenging, but good fun.
Morna modelled for our first December session. I was struggling with the conte pastel so did most of the drawings in pencil.
I have been snowed under with a job, Christmas, and a new niece (all very exciting but quite hard work) and that’s meant my life drawing from last year has been put aside until now.
First up are drawings of model Gina, from back in November!
Nat and her dog Lapa were wonderful models at last week’s life drawing session. I drew Lapa quite a lot, as you can see below …
That’s me caught up!
Some life drawing sketches of Sarah with her cello. I struggled a bit with the conte pastel, so I abandoned it for the pencil. The cello was difficult to draw!
I’ve got one more week to catch up on which I’ll post tomorrow.
Some very late sketches, modelled by Susan.
I have two more weeks of drawing to post which I’ll upload over the next two days.
Erle is Kinsey’s husband. In writing the script his character has been developed beyond his role in the short story. I like the exploration of their relationship.
And that’s it for Inktober!
For the penultimate character I’ve drawn Kinsey, who I’ve illustrated before but wanted to explore more. I’m writing a script of Kinsey’s Sword and am beginning to think more about what her character will look like.
Hermux Tantamoq is a watchmaker who is pulled into all sorts of adventures in Michael Hoeye’s books. My drawing is from Hermux in Time Stops for No Mouse, the first in the series, but my favourite is The Sands of Time. 
A double update! Both characters are from The Princess of Nowhere, the first novel I ever finished writing. Trennte is the manservant of Prince Jespar, and is the prince’s friend and mentor. Jeffrey is a tie. For some reason I cut Jeffrey out of the later drafts, something I regret as he was one of the things that made the first draft special. It’s possible that one day I will return to the story … I think it may work as an animated series, something a bit mad where talking clothes make sense. With that in mind the Trennte sketch is Gravity Falls-inspired.
Finn is a half-Indian, half-English boy who Maia meets and befriends.
Unfortunately I missed yesterday – I’m away from home at the moment, and yesterday proved too busy! I may do a double update tomorrow to catch up.
Maia is an orphan, sent out to Brazil to distant relatives in the care of Miss Minton.
Miss Minton is a severe but wonderful woman in Eva Ibbotson’s Journey to the River Sea, a beautiful book set in the early twentieth century about a young girl discovering the Amazon and the people who live there. I’ll be drawing a couple more of the characters over the next few days.
The second day back at life drawing I felt more relaxed. Maxime modelled, holding some lovely and difficult poses.
I’m still behind with uploading drawings from the 16th, but I’ll try to post those next weekend.
In this Cinderella-style story, Sarah is asked to dance by Prince Richard.
I took inspiration for Richard’s costume from John Peacock’s book Costume: 1066 to the Present.
Back in 2009 I wrote The Dance for NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, which takes place every November. Sarah is a maidservant in the court of the king when a magnificent ball takes place. Though she is cleaning, Sarah is asked to dance …
For Sarah’s clothes I took directly from this Crows Eye Productions video. It’s worth checking out their YouTube channel for more videos on period costume!
Manaus is Rudy’s son and as such has been through many of the trials she has.
There is something very interesting about the ‘relationship’ between a writer or artist and their characters. It’s possible to be very cruel to them to serve a story. I don’t remember thinking much of it at the time, but looking back now I feel very sorry for Rudy.
Recent Comments