Drawing Angela & Robin in the middle of May

The drawings posted today are in their chronological order of making.

On Tuesday May 15th I was at Angela Palmer's class at Brockweir in the Wye Valley.

Our model was Angela, from Hungary, who currently lives in Cheltenham.

The five drawings include short gesture poses and some longer ones.

I didn't get too excited with the above pieces so I played with my final drawing of the day. I started with the journey up through the right side of the pose from the foot to the head. I then turned the paper through 180 degrees and repeated drawing the same side of the body alongside the first drawing. I then made adjustments to produce an 'integrated' form.

On Thursday I am at Paul Fowler's Extreme Poses in Stroud, and Robin is the model.
Robin is again up in the ropes but for some of the poses Paul has constructed a slightly different suspension system whereby Robin hangs from a single rope within a harness around her waist and bottom.

I have become completely oblivious of the ropes, and they play no part in my drawings. Sometimes the knotted junctions, and the cushion pads, obscure my view of parts of the body, but the omissions present no problem to me.

 The next drawing I have posted upside down. I rather liked playing with this bit of trickery.

This next drawing, in double pencil (two pencils taped together), has been turned through 90 degrees counter-clockwise. I just liked the resulting 'running' pose and the way in which the silken drape appeared to blow in the wind.

Drawing Robin on May 10th 2012

I think I hinted in my last two postings that as I entered the month of May I might like to take up a new direction in my life drawing journey. But not knowing at all what that might be.

This morning I felt quite a low in my self-esteem, and as I sat in the car and travelled with my life-drawing colleagues over to Extreme Poses at Stroud I had no ideas, whatsoever, how I might approach life-drawing today.

Last night I did put a few extra materials in my bag: some sepia acrylic ink, one or two brushes, and a water container. So I had something in mind: 'to add some fluidity to my drawing', perhaps. Also to introduce some colour work into my fairly extended period of monochromatic pieces in charcoal or pen.

And this, below,  is what happened.

I give no explanation. I offer no analysis.

But I really enjoyed myself. I think I surprised myself. 

My palette consisted of: 4mm and 20mm willow charcoal sticks, diluted sepia acrylic ink, small paint brush, rolled tissue paper, soft pastels, and two fineliner pens taped together. Used in various permutations.

All are drawn on 110gsm A1 white cartridge paper.

After photographing my drawings with a hand held Panasonic Lumix FS9 digital camera I use Adobe Photoshop Elements to crop the image so removing the edges of the paper from the image and also placing it within the rectangle (hence the variation in dimensions of the presented piece although most drawings are on A1 paper).

My photographic and computer skills are limited. One result of this is that the last two drawings above appear larger than the previous five. In fact they are nearer A2 in actual size, although the originals are drawn on A1 paper.

May 1st and May 3rd 2012

In putting together my posting of drawings from May 8th I've just realised that I have deleted my posting of drawings from the first two life-drawing sessions in May, along with some fairly extensive notes which describe and analyse their content. 

I don't feel like recalling what I said, so I'm just re-posting the drawings.

The first set are of Sue who is a model I have had the pleasure of drawing over about four years. This was at Angela Palmer's class at Brockweir in the Wye valley. 

Then follow three pieces of Paul up in the ropes at Paul Fowler's Extreme Poses at Stroud. These seem to concentrate mainly on feet.

Drawing Penny on May 8th 2012

Three quick 5 minute poses to get started, using two 0.3mm fineliner pens taped together, drawn on an A1 sheet of cartridge paper.

Then on to the main pose for the day.
Two positions in the studio. Same pose.
Charcoal on A1 cartridge paper.
Quite a lot of tissue, brushing and finger work in playing with the charcoal.
Very enjoyable!