There's this and then there's that...

In case you have a problem with male nudity I am posting this double canvas that I created Monday and you can click to go here to that post to leave a comment which would be awesome if you so choose to do so.

In the meantime...

I returned back to my life drawing class which I hadn't been to since
August 1st...and I sure felt rusty.

Our session is broken down into segments of time and the model chooses his own poses. Jay likes to give us challenges...lol

These are the warm-up poses which last for 5 minutes each. I choose my  KOH-I-NOOR Woodless Colour Pencils which was the first time I used them and I liked them although I still prefer Watercolor pencils overall.

Then we get a 10-minute pose, which I sang the tune of Spiderman in my head as he looked like he was climbing a wall. He was actually just leaning against it but yeah, that's where my mind went. lol

Another 10-minute pose

A 20-minute pose, again leaning against the wall. I need to remember to go back and draw a wall line to anchor the poses.

And the final pose which was a little over 45 minutes broken down into 2 sessions so we all get a break to stretch.

linking up to

Paint Party Friday

Study in sanguine

Hi everyone, last night was the Life Drawing class so I thought I would pick my favorite one to show you. This is one of my favorite models, she really works to give us interesting poses which is greatly appreciated.

 Plus I love her purple hair 💗

I enjoy trying different art supplies so this time I brought out my Daler Rowney Sketching Sanguine Drawing and Smooth pencils and my Micron #2 pen to use.

 The drawing pencil develop a rough spot/hard spot while using and would make absolutely no marks, does anyone know why it happens or how to fix that? That was very frustrating, especially when you only have 20 minutes to work your drawing.

entering my sketch in

Paint Party Friday

step toward madness?

Perhaps...

but, I have to say that I am really enjoying taking some of my older sketches and turning them into "surreal art". I am sure Sigmund Freud would have a field day with the images I am producing. 😋

 Freud legitimized the importance of dreams and the unconscious as valid revelations of human emotion and desires; his exposure of the complex and repressed inner worlds of sexuality, desire, and violence provided a theoretical basis for much of Surrealism.

One of my favorite books from childhood was Gulliver's Travels so I am sure that influenced me somewhere in the back of my mind when I added Andrew Borloz's stencil Rural City Mountainscape onto the original sketch that I did last year in my Life Drawing classes. 

The road less traveled?

This is the original drawing done in a 4B pencil during a 30 minute pose. You can see that I record these at the top right hand corner of all my sketches. When thinking of what setting to place him in, I thought it would be interesting to leave him in greyscale and use bold colors around him. 

What evolved, well...let's say, it always surprises me too

So again, I ask you, dear reader, what does it make you think of and what title would you give it? I really would love to hear what you think.

Life drawing

Life drawing classes start out with 5-minute poses as a warm up exercise and I use to hate it, but it is necessary and now it's one of my favorite parts of the session. I also like doing them all on one page overlapping each other. 

Just about everybody in the class draws in the traditional charcoal, but I am not traditional and I like to play with color so I was using my watercolor pencils and a water brush. I usually cause a mild excitement curiosity at what I use at these sessions. The artists on both sides of me were intrigued and I'm glad I brought extras with me for the man on my right and the young lady who sat next to me as they both wanted to try them out.

"Lady Justice" perhaps since the swipe across her eyes looks like a blindfold

The model wasn't the best as she was kinda twitchy during her poses but I know it is hard to stay absolutely still for 20 to 30 minutes. Set a timer and try it, you'll be amazed at how bored you get...but she is getting paid for it so I do wish she would sit still. However, when she just laid flat on her back for the last pose I was dissappointed, even then she couldn't be still and kept wriggling.

I call this the dead man pose, lol or maybe sunbather

I'm starting to accumulate some drawings and there are a lot that I don't like...at all. I dislike most of my earlier drawings and have decided to either re-work them or gesso over them. This is one of those from last year...

5 minute warm-up exercise

So I took a stencil that my friend Jamie gave me and spritzed some spray ink on the mask and then imprinted it over the drawing. They just looked like they were at the beach to me so I added some water and a beach scene far off in the distance since it appeared that they were all looking at something. Actually to me, they seem to be waiting for someone or for something to happen.

I decided to soften up the stencil image and blend some of her colors onto the other women and added some water around the bottom of their legs so they look like they are wading. I want a name for this piece but I could use some help if you have any suggestions.

Ideas for a title:

"They went in too far"

"Beach discussion"

"Waiting until it's safe"

Entering this is Paint Party Friday

Life Drawing - Amalia

Well, today is the first time I got to draw the same model. And that is OK, not sure I like drawing someone again or if I prefer random new models. I overheard the model asking if the studio owner needed any more male models and was quite surprised to hear that no, she had more male models than females. Just an interesting little fact.

Another interesting fact is that there are a couple of artists that have DRAWN ME during our sessions ...wth? I find this a little weird....

So today I took my Faber Castell Water Crayons with me, and I can say, I still don't love them. They just seem to leave too many marks even after I have used my water brush to smooth the lines out.

3 minute poses

I always am amazed at how a new medium feels in my hands when I begin, the crayons felt large and clumsy, especially after several weeks of slick pens and pencils.

10 minute poses

I knew when I had planned on using the crayons that I was not going to be able to get small details, like her face.

But it was the lack of fingers and toes details that I missed the most.

This young woman is rather limber as you can see and we all groaned a little because this pose is all about foreshortening. And let me point out that she is striking this pose on top of a stool!

20 minute poses

I really prefer her hair up, but she usually takes it down on the last pose or so. I am sure there are people who really prefer it this way.

Then I got another surprise. The owner was off talking to one of the artists about a book, and she actually held the book up and called to me across the studio, saying something along the lines of "Look Sandee, this is your style!" What? I have a style? I mean, other than I use colors and different mediums while the remaining artists all use charcoal and pencils, what would my style be?

 I thought maybe it's my line drawing and use of color that defines my style, but evidently the fact that I use my mediums as watercolors also comes into play?

So I opened up the book after I got home to see what defines Expressive Figure Drawing...

"Others see the visible world as just the starting point for creating art that expresses a meaning beyond what is visible. This group places the goal of self-expression paramount in their works.They tease, trick, tickle,and torture their themes and motifs to bring out the maximum meaning,"

So there, I am feeling quite posh about myself. UNTIL I read more about this style....sigh...
And you don't have to be especially "gifted" to get started. Expressive drawing takes you "back to the spontaneity, the worry-free expressive nature you had as a child,"

So yeah, my art is considered childlike to her....lol..oh well...the inner child in me rules, what can I say?

"Usually people who are older are no longer as fearful about looking silly,"

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..

Life Drawing - Amalia

This week I worked with my Inktense pencils and while I love their vibrant colors, they weren't the best for sketching since I could only blend them once, one they dried, that was it...which is what I love about them in general...just not for quick and fast sketches.

3 minute warm up poses 

 At this point I love the richness of Intense pencils when they are dry

Next, the dreaded 10 minute poses....lol

Then, more my style - the 20 minute poses

This model did more with her hands than the previous models had, and I really enjoyed working on them although not always successful. Hands are still hard for me to do.

The absolute hardest pose ever...so far anyway.

And then we had time for one last 10 minute pose

I tried to be looser and intentionally made a drip and sploshes

Life Drawing - Jay

I thought I would be more nervous about drawing the male cock than I ended up being, actually had a harder time capturing the curves of the thighs and the muscles in the shoulders and chest....yes, I suffered greatly today for my art.

I chose to bring my Tombow markers and I think I was slighted by the artist sitting next to me who asked if she could show my markers to the artist on the other side of her and said...."Are these made to be used in the adult coloring books?" I told I guess you could but that I've never used one...her answer "Me either, I don't have the time for that." hmmm....bit my tongue and returned to my own little world.

So first off, the 3 minute poses, I decided to put them all on one page in order to spare my paper usage, after all, they are just practice....well, actually the whole session is practice, but you know what I mean. He was a very good model, came with all his own props and supplied us with "classic" poses.

Next up were the 10 minute poses, I think these are more frustrating because it's more than a quick sketch but not enough time to fix mistakes or get the details. I was also a little more than frustrated with my choice of the markers, and was having some difficulty being fluid. I was very stiff and uncomfortable, I think that ladies remark was still bouncing around in my head.

This pose was extremely difficult, and I just couldn't grasp the foreshortening in a 10 minute pose.

Then we had a 20 minute pose, and I knew I had to change up something in my style as I continued to not like the drawings. Drawing a male body was such a learning curve for me, the slim hip, the broad shoulder, there wasn't any fat on the model so you really had to look for the definition. At this point I kept saying to myself to look for the shadows...look for the shadows...

Next, we had a 30 minute pose, I love the longer poses, but I also tried something different. I tried Contour drawing technique and really liked how it turned out.
A contour is the line which defines a form or edge - an outline. Contour drawing is the place where most beginners start, following the visible edges of a shape. The contour describes the outermost edges of a form, as well as dramatic changes of plane within the form.

Honestly, I would have been happy to have been finished after that drawing because I really, really liked how it came out. but we had time for another 20 minute pose. I tried the contour drawing again but it wasn't as successful as the first one. But by using the Tombow in a watercolor format seem to work pretty well over all and I felt more comfortable using them.

I also will admit that it un-nerved me a little bit that he came over to me after the session to see what I had drawn. I was the only one too....I was more nervous showing him my version of his nude body which was silly considering he just posed nude for 2 hours but I've read that the men are always curious to see if women draw their male bits or if they gloss over that area. I think since I was the youngest in the group he came over to see what I had done. .....there was a lady who sat next to me on the other side who did just draw his face and "glossed" over the male bits and she requested a female model next time. All I could think of was...really?

He was actually a little "impressed sounding" ( or could that have been my imagination?) that I did watercolor sketching...I think I smiled all the way home.

Life drawing

I'm doing something new, and loving it!

"Figure drawing, also called Life Drawing, is drawing the naked human form. Figure drawing has always been the cornerstone of artistic training, but is also popular with amateur as well as professional artists. The figure presents many technical problems - form, structure, foreshortening and so on - so is wonderful training, and also allows the artist to display their skill. But the nude figure also allows the artist to express a great deal about human nature.

Stripped of the cultural baggage of clothing, the nude figure can express every aspect of humanity, from the heroic to the pathetic. So, when you attend a life drawing class, you are participating in a centuries-old artistic tradition. "

I think I was more nervous about what to bring, and what would be provided more than anything. In the end I choose a medium size sketch pad, my set of Stabillo pastel pencils, an eraser and a bottle of water. Packed my nerves along with my kit and drove off to mingle among the "real" artists and do a live nude study. 

The first poses were considered warm-ups and they were 3 minute poses. I remember doing this in college (the last time I drew a nude in class) so this didn't bother me, although I would have preferred to skip the warm up and go straight into a longer sketching session because I rarely warm up, but then maybe I should do that more often?

Next we settled into a 2, 30 minute poses and here I was happiest, getting a chance to add a little more detail. I did notice that when the model changed position, some of the artists moved their postions also to get better angles. Me? I stay right where I am regardless of the angle being good or not, I figure I'll learn more if I draw whatever I am given.
foreshortening : portray or show (an object or view) as closer than it is or as having less depth or distance, as an effect of perspective or the angle of vision

I was very happy to have my different colors with me so that I could use the colors to add depth and interest to my drawing. She is actually sitting in a chair with one foot propped up on an ottoman, but I didn't have time to draw everything in.

Then we switched to 2 20 minute poses...frankly I would have preferred a longer pose of 40 minutes, to really focus on details. We all had smiles on our faces during this set as the model was falling asleep.

The last pose, I see my fingers are covered with pastel dust, and I need to add wipes of some sort to my arsenal of supplies if I decide to use them again, which I sure I will.  I really enjoyed using the pencils, but next week I am contemplating black markers for contrast. I think I might work on a different medium each week to see how well they work out. Right now I can say I like the softness of the pastel and being able to smudge for shadowing. 

Drawing the nude bodies doesn't embarrass me, I was more worried about how the other artists would accept me and whether my sketches would be good enough for me to be accepted into their group. After all they all know each other and I was the outsider. I think it went OK, no one shunned or snubbed me, lol