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.
Morna modelled for our first December session. I was struggling with the conte pastel so did most of the drawings in pencil.
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.
While my sister and brother-in-law were visiting, a neighbour told us where we could watch badgers. I’d always been under the impression they only ventured out at the dead of night, but he assured us that from around 7pm was a good time to see them. After one false start (we misunderstood his instructions and ended up in the wrong wood) and a wait of about half an hour my sister and I saw a family of four badgers running about, scratching, and playing. I didn’t take my sketchbook – next time I will – but I took my camera, and though my pictures weren’t great the footage I filmed worked pretty well. The sketches below are studies from the videos I recorded.
While boarding the Pigeon Crumbs animatic I posted a few weeks ago I drew these reference sketches and character models to help me figure out how the character would look, feel and act.
My dog is notoriously difficult to photograph, let alone draw. This afternoon I managed to capture her in the garden as she munched on a very old tennis ball and an offcut from someone’s fence.
I led more high school-age animation workshops this year, expanding on the morphing workshop from last year. This time everyone who took part was in complete control of their own piece of animation between their character and the next person’s. Whether the character melts, explodes, shatters, or morphs, this was planned out in thumbnails before it was animated. I also asked those taking part to begin with simple shapes – this encouraged them to animate the movement before animating the details.
The results are fantastic!
Annie modelled at this week’s session. There were some really wonderful poses, and lots of interesting hands and feet!
Sketches from last week’s life drawing session with Andy posing.
Bren modelled at life drawing on Tuesday. I enjoyed the variety of poses, and even drew part of the room using the mirror in the final drawing.
Mireille modelled at life drawing last night, holding some great twisting and leaning poses. I also enjoyed drawing her hair!
The first two drawings, in charcoal, are from a workshop on an artists’ retreat back in February. It was (just) warm enough to sit outside, though I remember my hands freezing. Both charcoal sketches were drawn half looking at the paper, half looking only at the object. The top one has several under-drawings that have been rubbed back. I wouldn’t normally draw in this way but it was a good exercise.
The final sketch I drew in my garden yesterday, in glorious sunshine.
Last week I had a good life drawing session with lots of dynamic and interesting poses. I drew in conte pastel for the first half, which was an attempt to shake me up a bit and loosen my drawings. Though everything felt a bit messy I think it was good as an exercise. I’ve noticed I’m getting much slower: I need to get back in the habit of regular gesture drawing to counteract this!
My first drawing session after Christmas, and I was quite rusty … it took me a while to warm up. We had a break just as I was beginning to feel I could draw again!
What with packing up and moving across most of the country and Christmas and New Year, it’s taken me a while to post some of my life drawing sketches from December. Here’s a selection!
Janey was the life model at this Tuesday’s session, and she brought her dog along! It was fun to do quick gestures of the dog while also capturing her lovely poses.
Andy was modelling at this week’s life drawing. He held some great poses, including one where he played the guitar. As he was actually playing the guitar rather than pretending to, I feel the final drawing has real movement.
Moving for work has meant I’ve had to search for another life drawing class … thankfully this last week I found one! It’s a great little group and the model this week, Helen, came up with some lovely poses. It’ll be good to get back into regular classes again.
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