Advancing and foreshortening

This is the final drawing of the day following those on my previous posting.
The model poses on a chaise longue and I lower my easel in order to sit and gain dvantage of her advancing foot and the foreshortening of her thigh. I place emphasis on these two aspects by considering the page composition: I allow half the body to leave the page so placing emphasis on that part which I have drawn. This has a twofold aim. Firstly when drawing I am not distracted away from that aspect or part of the pose which I find of particular interest. And secondly, and similarly,  the beholder is helped to engage with that which I have decided is signigicant about the pose. The anchoring of the body to the side of the paper I believe allows the leg to push out into the space of the paper and hopefully into the space occupied by the beholder.

Chin on hand, elbow on knee, and two feet together.

Saturday, and again with Liv, this time at Tony Tribe's life-drawing day at Arts Alive in Crickhowel.
I've previously talked about an 'interaction' or 'dialogue' with a pose or with a particular part of a pose which instantly gets under way. Then there is no questioning about what to draw or how to draw. I just get on with mark-making in the knowledge that I have the starting point and the journey into the drawing will naturally unfold.
Today was such an occasion: the head resting on the hand, the elbow on the knee, and then continuing down to the feet one of which had the delightful advancing turn of the toes.
I lowered my easel and sat looking upwards as I felt I wanted to travel from the feet up through these three juxtaposed forms.
I then raised my easel and stood for the second drawing as I fancied exploring any differences to the three forms as I looked down into the model's lap.
Then for the third drawing I felt compelled to explore and highlight the three key junctions in the overall composition.
I really did enjoy the journey through these three drawing experiences and was completely immersed in a meditative state during their execution.

All are two-handed, three-layered pencil drawings on A1 cartridge paper.

My love of Italy

I recalled in a recent posting my engagement with 16thC Italian drawing.
I became particularly fascinated with the drawings of
Annibale Carracci,
amongst a whole host of other Italian masters.
A somewhat casual Google of his name this morning brought me into contact with
Anabella Carrasco.
I will have to be more precise with my Italian when I go to Sicily in a few weeks time, otherwise I could end up with the unexpected!

A sense of looking up, foreshortening, and the issue of a focus on mark-making.

With the model at or above my eye level, even when I'm standing at my easel, has always provided a challenge since I first attended 'extreme poses' way back in 2010. But today for some reason I became really interested in how different I should be approaching the issue of 'looking-up' if it was to become a clear component or characteristic of the drawing. Coupled with this was an observation by Paul Fowler that perhaps for the first time I had managed to suggest that the pose extended far beyond the edges of the paper. Clearly this often happens as a foot, a hand or the head is not included in the drawing. But here Paul was referring to the sense of space within which the pose existed was suggested by the drawing in a clear and new kind of way. His comment was made in relation to the first drawing of the day which also engages successfully with 'foreshortening'.
Also today I felt a greater confidence in my conscious approach to utilising variation in the strengths of my mark-making.

Drawing Liv on September 22nd 2015

Here I am at the second session following my talk. And I feel I am still awaiting for something new to emerge. The one difference here is that I deliberately included a portrait study. A very rare occurrence for me. There were two reasons for this:
a) after having focused on the hands and foreshortened lower legs, I was entranced by the contrasting challenge of exploring her proud head and the strength of her kneck, and
b) I recalled that recently Paul Fowler had undermined my confidence by saying that although I had now developed my own very personal process of mark-making which had a distinctive character and was evident throughout my drawings of the life model, when I came to the face I reverted to "two eyes, a nose and a mouth". In other words I was not taking into my engagement with the face/head the same degree of intensive dialogue as I am able to reach with the rest of the body. So, I asked myself, what will happen if I try to explore the head in the same way I have been drawing hands and feet and the rest of each pose.
At the moment my only reaction is that I am not at all interested in portraiture. But I am very interested in battling with the challenge of including a 'face' within a drawing which has a consistancy throughout in its mark-making.

My first drawings after my talk.

I felt totally relaxed and had not given a moments thought to the morning's session ahead. My only conscious point of entry was that I would be using my recently adopted three layered approach, I.e. two hard pencils to explore the form, then two medium pencils to start the process of emphasis, then two soft pencils to strengthen the points of emphasis.
What a joy to discover the model for today is Natalie who I have had the pleasure to draw over the past five years.

Talking about my art

This was the first time that I have formerly talked about my life-drawing. Quite a challenge, and a real opportunity to reflect, and to focus on the essentialities of 'drawing the life model', 'my two-handed-process' and the unique experience of 'extreme poses'.
Since the talk I have attended two life-drawing sessions (see the next two postings) and my feeling is that I am awaiting the next step in my life-drawing journey, perhaps searching for it but not over eagerly, but expecting something unanticipated to happen. Whether there are the seeds in the next two sets of drawings remains to be evaluated. However, having photographed this morning the drawings from these two sessions I will now post them, and perhaps give them some thought.

My dialogue with the pose

I have talked in the past about the special relationship which can be built over time between an artist and a model, and that the depth of the ensuing dialogue can result in the artist moving from drawing the model as object to the drawing becoming an expression of a feeling that the artist experiences when presented with a pose.
This feeling can be in response to the overall form of the pose as a whole, it can be in response to a particular part of the anatomy which stands out from the pose as a whole, or it can (and frequently is in my case) be initiated by sensing that an opportunity is being presented by the pose to further explore an issue which I have previously grappled with.
Last Thursday, Sept 10th, there was no conscious decision to focus on hands and feet, and it was something of a surprise when this morning I layed out my five drawings (this and my previous posting) to find the common subject. So what was the reason for this focus? What caused it?
Was it that the hands and feet came right out to me from the pose, just about one metre away? Was it that I now feel I am able to draw hands and feet, whereas to start with I was hopeless, but feel that I can go further with exploring them? Was it that I acknowledge they can be a subject in their own right having studied the drawings of Durer and Michelangelo, to name just two masters of anatomy?
But these three drawings are not only about hands and feet. In making these drawings I am addressing many of my currant preoccupations: 'exaggeration and foreshortening', 'the two-handed mark-making process', 'line as tone', and 'the product holding a record of how it is made'.
I love life-drawing. I have become immersed in it.

My quest for a tonal line

A darker, heavier, thicker line will advance, and a lighter and thinner line will recede. Usually. Hence, perspective can be incorporated.
I have been battling for some time now with line-only drawing. In fact for about four years, on and off. However recently I have begun to feel a degree of satisfaction that in my work 'line' can indicate 'tone', but I am unsure whether the beholder of my drawings interprets my mark-making in the same way.
As it is not my intention to produce drawings for exhibition, or even for others to view, in other words their principal role is the part each plays in my personal and experimental process that is my life-drawing journey, then I do not go out of my way to seek a clarity to this uncertainty.
So I will continue with seeking an answer in the weeks ahead. In the meantime here are two quick drawings from Sept 10th at 'extreme poses' which illustrate my dilemma.

The 16thC is not a time away

Just over four weeks since last drawing but not lost to drawing. So to Oxford to the Ashmolean to engage with 'Great British Drawings' and to Christ Church Picture Gallery for 'Undisputed Masterpieces'. So much to recall, so much to follow up. Perhaps the most fullfilling experience was spending time to observe and absorb pieces from 16thC Italy. Amongst many I loved Annibale Carracci's 'A nude youth seated to the right'. Drawings by Leonardo and Michelangelo were also exhibited.  When looking at these works I felt that the issues which were represented by and in these drawings were in fact the same as those which I am experiencing in my own humble way. I felt, and continue to feel, a huge empathy with these drawings.
In relation to a Michelangelo drawing of a left leg there was an exhibition note: in translating the Italian 'disegno' as 'drawing' it continued "Drawing meant not only the act of depiction, but also the intellectual process of understanding, creation, and design - a crucial combination for Michelangelo". I think this blog does convey my gradual discovery of the complexity and the holistic nature, and hence the intellectual process of life-drawing.

Such experiencies, as I have just described, extend the context for ones own work. For me there is never any thought to 'copy'. What I have come to realise is the universal engagement with similar issues by artists from different times (or should I be saying the similar engagement with universal issues). Whichever is appropriate such expeprience raises the feel-good factor within oneself.

Here is a drawing from my last life-drawing session.
It is a two-handed pencil drawing in which I have followed a process which I am exploring the potential of: firstly two hard leads (3H/4H) explore the basics of the selected aspect of the pose which interests me, then two softer leads (2B/3B) start to define, then a third layer of mark-making gives emphasis (8B). Paul Fowler, 'extreme poses' tutor, and I agreed that this distinction was clear in most of the drawing and resulted in a type and character of drawing which is particular to myself. But he was unhappy that in drawing the face I had reverted back to the 'unthinking' process of 'a face is two eyes, a nose and a mouth'. I know exactly what he means. I have not made myself aware of what I am seeing, and so my marks do not represent what I am seeing. Next time!

My 30 minute space

At Paul Fowler's 'extreme poses' we usually have five 30 minute poses. I believe my approach to drawing has adjusted over time to this 30 minute space. What goes on in this space is quite complex: there is the nature of the dialogue between artist and model (I know Robin would agree with me when I mention, friendship, mutual respect, shared venture, these having evolved over a number of years); there is my acquiring an ownership of my art in terms of tools, technique and how I approach drawing which allows a relaxed freedom to open up each time I stand at my easel to address the pose and the space in the paper; there is my own confidence that my fairly quick drawing method will ensure that I do have time to engage with that which I find of interest in the pose which in turn creates 'thinking space' for addressing issues such as selection, composition and mark-making, and those aspects of a drawing which are of particular interest to me at the time - past postings have described some of these, for example: 'exaggerated foreshortening', 'lost or soft edges', 'a journey up through the pose'.

Here are two drawings from last Thursday's morning at 'extreme poses' at Pegasus Art in Stroud. In both these the form became anchored to one side of the paper and from this base moved out into the space.