Life studies

Last week's class was all about drawing details from life. Our model, a lovely man of a certain age with white locks and a very hairy body, sat in a chair and we had to draw parts of him as directed by Jan. I'm only uploading the face and hand from his clothed poses though! I was sitting to the side and slightly behind him which made the angles very interesting. And now I know why there are whole classes on drawing body parts - hands are so hard.

Drawing: Historical Approaches II

Back to class at VISA - and not a moment too soon. I spent all day yesterday and today in front of a computer, in a classroom, learning how to set up SharePoint. Well sort of, the subject is sooo big that two days only scratches the surface. Anyway, getting to art class was like shunting a locomotive: a switch was thrown and the engine went chugging off down a branch line. The scenery changed, the pace slowed, the rhythm was steady and people were laughing rather than groaning. Nice.

The subject tonight was to create an undersea creature composed of features taken from the contents of 5 mystery brown bags plus a vintage line drawing of marine life. I got a small wind up duck toy, a dinosaur finger puppet, a rubber bat with wings outstretched, a whistle thing that you blow and the paper curls out (you know), and a life-like papier-mache pea pod. The vintage drawing was of a Chambered Nautilus. Our first drawing was where we composed the creature and added features and detail that we liked. Drawing number two was a blind contour drawing - which are always fun to do. Drawing 3 was a loose rapid ink sketch done with India ink and a brush. Drawing 4 was a rapid pencil sketch using an "abundance" of lines.

Here they are:

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