On Wednesday, our class was looking at how bones affect the figure. We had an excellent model, Mark, who had previously done portrait modelling but had never done life modelling. He was absolutely excellent, because he could remain really still. We started by drafting the figure in pencil ( not my best media), and shaded in where we could see the bones under the flesh. We then looked at a skeleton and drew in the bones in colour, thereby indicating which bone parts affected the figure. We tried this out with the sitting figure, standing figure and lying with an arched back. The drawings I produced were not my best, but it was most enjoyable and interesting.
On Thursday I had a frustrating day. This is how it goes sometimes. I thought I was going to really enjoy it because we were drawing with tone, but we ended up rubbing into our work, doing "careful shading" which does not do it for me. I like heavily textured work with charcoal, with considerable tonal value, but I found careful soft shading pedestrian and lacking in spirit. We were working with longer poses which creates different problems. I simply could not get the proportions right and got very frustrated, but continued working at it and finally managed to pull it all together. Our model, Selina, was holding the same pose for 3 x 30 minutes, but I discovered it is very difficult for her to get exactly back in the same position, which did not help me with my drawing!
However I had been so inspired by Sheila's work that I bought a huge box of water soluble crayons to try out tomorrow when we move into colour. I just hope I can use them to good effect. Time and time again I wish I had done either GCSE art or a foundation course to learn how all the different media work, so I have a raft of knowledge with different media, and at least know how to use them properly and with imagination and skill.
And because I am so enjoying this art class environment for summer school, I have booked a 2 day class at City Lit, Drawing and Monoprints, later this month. I produce so much more work when I am in the class environment, and I really enjoy looking at other people's work.
Glad you are having so much fun.
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