Recent life drawings - 2

I moved between two positions in the studio and used different scales, including a large scale close up of his cupped hands.

I am pleased with the simplicity of this drawing in which limbs radiate from the centre as the model spins within a hoop. 

 

In the above right Robin supported up in the ropes for a 30 minute pose. An amazing form which I decided straight away to respond to with no intention whatsoever of deconstructing it or playing with two scales. The advancing right leg went in first. Then the feeling of depth and perspective was explored which was significantly helped by her upper body and head not being seen. I saw the advancing left foot late on. But as soon as it came within my perception I realised its significance, it too advanced and helped strengthen the perspective between the feet in the foreground and the dangling arm beyond. The lower left drawing is of Shelley up in the ropes way above my seated eye level. Unlike the drawing of Robin this is not a straightforward representation of the form before me. What I now realise I did was to miss out some of her body and bring the legs and her arms in front of her head much closer together. This must have been a fairly subconscious and intuitive response as I don't recall deliberately doing it at the time. What this does is to emphasise the curled up nature of the pose. You can see how the knees and right hand advance. So in both these drawings I am using a degree of exaggeration, by advancing (or drawing larger) those parts nearest to me.

  And finally another experimental drawing utilising two scales. I firstly outlined, to the larger scale, the chin, right arm, left elbow, right breast and the line of the top of her left thigh. At the time, that was going to be the subject of the drawing which I thought I would then work on. But as I had on a number of recent occasions been exploring the morphing of two parts of a pose and also two parts but at different scales I elected to introduce the outline of the back, down to the bottom, and to include the upturned foot resting on the plinth. Finally the left breast went in which related to this second smaller scale drawing. The theory that I am developing about this approach is that the resultant form often says something more about the actual characteristics of the pose than a straightforward representation would. But probably it is saying a lot more about me and my perceptual processes and what I am actually seeing and the character of the pose that I am reacting to. Putting it another way I think I want to draw large (close up) the part of the pose which attracts me at the beginning but I also want to draw (within the one composition) or suggest something about the whole pose.