Life Drawing - meet Mike

I really look forward to my life drawing sketching, and this time I took my box of Daler Rowney pencils with me to play with. I didn't get to try them all, but I did manage to try 5 of them. In the 3 minute poses I used my Sanguine Drawing and Sanguine Smooth. The Drawing one gave me a finer more defined line and the Smooth felt more like a charcoal, but didn't smudge. They were both fine for the 3 minute poses. I think in hindsight, I would like to outline with the Drawing and then use the heavier lined Smooth for depth and shadows. 

Next, my dreaded 10 minute poses are becoming less dreaded now. I can tell you one thing, in life drawing, foreshortening is the trick to getting the poses completed, but I'm actually enjoying the challenges although I didn't have enough time to get his left arm done well, I do like how the right arm turned out. I switched to my Watersoluble pencils, so far I really enjoy sketching and then being able to take my water brush and smooth out and add shadows. 

Watersoluble 8B

10 minutes Watersoluble HB

10 minutes 4B

He looks a little chubby in the next 2 poses, but he was not. Mike is a man in his 60's and in pretty darn good shape.

20 minutes HB

I always get tickled at the 30 minute poses, mainly because the models tend to doze off. I cannot imagine being that relaxed laying naked in front of a group of people. However, they seem to be.

30 minutes 4B

We had a lot of accidents during this session, easels collapsing, pencils dropping and general rummaging around in supplies.... and sneezing....lol And one person arrived late, which I think it altogether bad form when you have a nude model.
Thankfully the model was good..