Sunday, March 19, 2017

Quick pose life drawing fourth attempt.

I'm getting better at getting a descriptive contour line down in the time (90 seconds, 2 minutes, or 3 minutes per drawing) but I must not miss my chance to put in at least a line for hands and feet (when I can see them, sometimes they are covered by cloth or props).
Too often I haven't even done a head when I find myself rushing to it knowing there's only a few seconds left.
Same goes for  hands and feet.
It's so easy to indulge yourself for a full 30 seconds on some excitingly dynamic part of the body, only having to rush madly to get to the other parts!
Anyway, here's some of my fourth session's crop.

Quick gesture drawing, terra cotta pencil on paper

Quick gesture drawing, terra cotta pencil on paper

Quick gesture drawing, terra cotta pencil on paper

Quick gesture drawing, terra cotta pencil on paper

Quick gesture drawing, terra cotta pencil on paper

Quick gesture drawing, terra cotta pencil on paper

Quick gesture drawing, terra cotta pencil on paper

Quick gesture drawing, terra cotta pencil on paper

Quick gesture drawing, terra cotta pencil on paper

Quick gesture drawing, terra cotta pencil on paper

Quick gesture drawing, terra cotta pencil on paper


Frame friendly figures in pencil and watercolor

My splashing on the water color experiment got me thinking about doing something for my Etsy shop.
So I picked up a decent looking, but very cheap popular sized frame from Walmart (under $10) which had an 8" x 10" cardboard matt in it.
Then I got some 14" x 11" acid free mixed media paper, a bit thicker than my life drawing paper so it wouldn't wrinkle as much with the watercolor.
Then I re-drew (in terra cotta colored pencil, and also in graphite pencil) a few of my most recent figure drawings to go right behind the matt, snugly inside the frame, so it wouldn't need any re-positioning or trimming assuming someone had an 11" x 14" frame with an 8" x 10" matt. Actually, an 8" x 10" matt, for framing an 8" x 10" photo, is closer to 7.5" x 9.5"
A splash of water color and some photographing later, and now they're up on my Etsy shop.














A splash of color...

Watercolor, to be precise.
I pulled out some from my third attempt pile and got my sable brush out of mothballs...






Sunday, March 12, 2017

Quick pose life drawing third attempt

I feel like I am getting the hang of one to three minute poses with a colored pencil a bit more now.
It's quite interesting being so focused on a person so intensely for 3 hrs, in so many poses.
I was stretching a bit during breaks (20 mins drawing, 10 min breaks) and found myself looking at more nude figures in the wood grain of the floorboards without thinking about it.
Kind of like seeing shapes in clouds. Its seems to happen more when you are not really paying any attention to what you are looking at, and your mind is elsewhere.
Anyhow, my goal for future drawings I think is to try and get some cursory shading in along with a decisively drawn contour line drawing, if I can.
Here's my favorite 9 out of the 50 or so I drew (I'm not showing the real stinkers!)...










Quick pose life drawing second attempt

I like a challenge.
On my second 3 hr stint of super quick poses (one and a half minutes, up to 3min poses) I determined to be a bit more assertive earlier on with my lines.
Rather than lightly plotting my main lines/masses carefully and faintly and then running out of time before I could attempt a contour line of any worth, I thought I'd minimize the planning and try and get those lines in before the timer ran out!
Instead of letter size, I'm working on 11"x17" paper as well, which I like better.
I think I'm heading in the right direction (at least for my current choice of medium, a prismacolor pencil). Here's my favorites (out of the 50-ish drawings I made).








Quick pose life drawing



I decided to do some life drawing.

Meridee runs a quick pose class (no instruction, just do your own thing) and finally dragged me along. 1min 30 second poses, up to 3 minute poses for the most part for 3 hrs. Maybe a 4 or 5 minute pose at the end.

Quick pose takes some getting used to!

I did a fair bit of life drawing at college and for a few years after (like every chance I got). Usually 5 to 30 minute poses.

I always used to take my time figuring out the proportions, direction, volumes etc as I went. There's hardly time for that, you just put your pencil down and the timer goes off. NEXT POSE!

Here's some of my wrong headed approach (for quick poses) from those first tries. I could make a start with an attempt at a methodical approach, but that's all. I was just starting to enjoy myself, then time to move on. A bit like someone giving you a shove every time you just start to drop off to sleep.




For any feeling of accomplishment I needed a more direct and immediate approach...