An enjoyable genre emerges

Perhaps a bit pretentious to call it a 'genre' but within the context of the range of themes, issues engaged with, and what I might call types of responses to poses, then this drawing is representative of a particular process which I frequently find I have entered into.
Some characteristics, not in any particlar order, are:
a) two opposing views of the same pose are included and they address and confront each other perhaps with a degree of intimacy,
b)  there is a space within and space beyond,
c) the history of the making of the drawing is retained in that early fine lines from my two-handed explorations pave the way for later selective mark-making decisioning,
d) my 'anagram' process brings into the composition other parts of the body and places them in an ambiguous juxtaposition with the more obvious main pose(s),
e) events within the main event appear such as the journey the eye will find itself taking as it moves through the collection of hands and feet which have come together in the lower part of the drawing,
f) overlap, superimposition, transparency, together with ambiguity, all contribute to a pleasing 'spatial' activity which embraces something of a 'cubist' philosophy.

August 22: poses from 1 minute to 10 minutes.

My main drawing of the day I will post separately but here are my drawings from the morning as Andrea entered a variety of poses from one minute thro to 10 minutes. As usual they are A1 on cartridge paper with graphite and tinted charcoal.

Summer highpoints: indicators of foci of my interests

Over the summer I attended two 3-day events. At Extreme Poses in Stroud, England, and at Arts Alive in Crickhowell, Wales.
The following eleven postings cover my output, and provide a context description of what took place.
This blog is my personal diary of my life-drawing journey and together with my note books becomes my personal archive of drawings, thoughts, and attempts at analysis.
My view is that these seven drawings say something about my life-drawing interests at this time and each plays a role in my evolutionary and experimental art.
I don't do revolutionary change, so I am fascinated by connections with what has gone before and always look forward in anticipation to the emergence of something new or different even though that freshness of change may only be very subtle.

the muse and the mannequin: nos 7 - 'a synthesis'

If I went to this 3 days of drawing from the theatre of two models and four mannequins with any pre-thoughts they were that I would be attempting to utilise, and expect to see in my drawings, the contrasting characteristics of the nude models with those of the mannequins. Particularly the gestural qualities of the muse with the rather stiffness of the mannequin. Of course, that turned out to be a simplistic approach. There was so much more on offer.

In fact most of my drawings contained brief reference to the mannequins in a direct way, except for these three. But what I believe did take place was quite fascinating in that the presence of the mannequins with their special characteristics spurred me on towards an increased sensitivity towards the qualities and characteristic of the human body. I was acutely aware of the presence of these figues sitting on or leaning against the plinths. They had an uncanny presence, at times I felt as though they were actual people watching me going about my usual task of drawing my muse. It was very odd.

If my pre-thought, above, was followed then I would say it was most clearly expressed in these three drawings. But these were not done consecutively.  The first is from day one and is in fact my first drawing of the day. I recall feeling that this was what the sessions would be about. The mannequin is centrally placed, looking to the right, and the drawing includes two poses: the female on the right has her right arm raised with her left hand appearing to rest on the mannequins knee, but mannequin and model are drawn to different scales, and then behind the mannequin is a figure with feet towards us and her body leaning away into the space beyond. Don' ask me why it is like this. I have no idea. It just happened.

The second drawing, from day two, I remember working hard at to bring the mannequin and the muse together with some sort of attached narrative. The differences between mannequin and model contrast in heads, breasts, hands and feet. I must have been conscious of exploiting these differences at the time, but not really able to recall the experience.

Then the third drawing made during the last afternoon (this was on a huge sheet of paper on a huge board, much bigger than all my other drawings which are A1) and finally did it for me. The model's upper body was clothed so I just worked on what I could see sitting on a stool.  Then I brought in the upper part of a mannequin which had a 'glamorous' head attached to it, and workd and morphed the two together.

the muse and the mannequin: nos 6 - 'but, again no mannequin'

In the first I was just drawn into responding simply, quickly and boldly, to a selected aspect of the two poses. Each started with a two-handed exploratory outline, then the layers of tinted charcoal lightly caressed with a tissue, then the heavier graphite lines took place.
Then, in the charcoal drawing, I just felt like exploring moving half a metre or so to my right and drawing the pose again. In making this drawing I first went in with blocks of tone with the charcoal stick on its side caressed over with a tissue then I added the line work.

the muse and the mannequin: nos 5 - 'spot the mannequin'

I will admit that I found the models far more attractive and challenging to engage with than the mannequins. However, you will see that in posting nos 7 in this series I did attempt a serious 'synthesis of muse with mannequin'. You may recall in April 2017 I posted the results of a day of drawing mannequins set up by Paul Fowler at Prema Arts. I believe the main outcomes from that exercise was that in future in my drawing of the human model I should aim to be more gestural, engage more with anatomical detail and idiosyncrasy, perhaps exaggerate by bringing forward and/or receding part(s) of the pose, realise the space within and the space beyond the pose, and simply to celebrate the human form and be inspired by the nude muse.
So in these drawings you may be able to differentiate between muse and mannequin.

the muse and the mannequin: nos 4 - 'doctor, doctor, please not another injection'

I quite like the contrast between the plain opened jacket worn by the model at the back and the deliberate hatching technique to the bodies of the two models.

the muse and the mannequin: nos 3 - 'a flowing embrace'

I just could not resist 'overlapping', 'superimposing', 'morphing', 'blending' these two poses. I just go for it. There is no design, except that which is stimulated automatically within my subconscious. The outcome is a surprise, and often a narrative can be post-rationally applied.

the muse and the mannequin: nos 2 - 'the swing comes into play'

We often have a plinth or two below the ropes which the model can utilise in a pose how they wish. When a plinth is used it introduces into the pose issues of gravitational weight in contrast to ideas of suspension in the ropes. Here, the seat of the swing which Paul introduced for part of the three days played a similar role to a plinth. It will be noticed that for some the poses I lowered and sat at my easel enabling me to look upwards at the pose.

the muse and the mannequin: nos 1 - 'I just had to go for this pose alone, so no mannequin in sight'

I love drawing Robin and here she presents her qualities in both in terms of the pose and anotomical detail. So a quick exploratory drawing in charcoal followed by my usual two-handed two-graphite approach. No distractions by the mannequins.

Double model and four mannequins

Here is Paul Fowler setting up the 'theatre' of four mannequins and the ropes for two models at Extreme Poses at Pegasus Art in Stroud. Over three days (August 1st, 2nd & 3rd, 2017) we explored and experimented with the endless opportunities for juxtaposing concepts and the reality of what was before us and relating these contrasting subjects.
More about the mannequins and how Paul has worked with the mannequins in his art may be found on: www.paulfowlerstudio.co.uk

Over the three days the models took up a high variety of poses lasting about 30 minutes each with a few longer ones. Each day we moved through 120 degrees around the centrally placed 'stage' which allowed us to bring into our work different mannequins and views of them.

My drawings will be grouped according to the main emphasis or the theme which emerged so will not be posted in the sequence of making. I will be including them under the heading 'the muse and the mannequin' with a sub-heading to suggest the main emphasis or theme.