Cropping gets closer?

 Of course it does. 

But what is discovered? 

What is revealed?

Let us take a look................. Is it just a closer examination of mark-making? Does it bring us closer to an understanding of  the juxtapositioning of points of focus which takes place in the mind of the artist during the period of the pose? Does the crop say more? Is this a useful exercise?

Bringing together two models from their own homes.

 Another virtual life-session designed by Andrew in which he is joined by Fra.

Some movement poses to start with. Then two 10 minute poses in which they each presented a standing front and back view alternately. I project them on to my large tv screen and move back and forth from one to the other during each pose session, adding to my drawing with each switch.

Then we had a 55 minute pose. Fra for a portrait and Andrew in a reclining full body pose.

Following Fra's movement pose, Andrew moved around with an emphasis on projecting his feet and hands towards the camera. This was quite fascinating, and immediately conjured up ideas for drawings in which exaggerated foreshortening would project lines of toes into the face of the beholder, with the body of the muse bounding off into the depths of the paper. I just sat there, and enjoyed the movements which Andrew initiated, and focused on the extraordinary anatomical shapes of feet and hands. As a result I did no drawing. But I have a wealth of provocative images, and ideas, to bring into my art at some later date.

Here is the sequence of the construction of this final drawing as I recall it. What we have to remember is my belief that I enter a deep meditative state as I engage with the process. So here are my recollections: I started with a profile drawing of Fra's left side of her face. No intention at this time of including her right eye. 

I had a feeling that Andrew's reclining head might play a part, but I moved on to including Andrew's hand as it appeared over the horizon of the line of his hip and also his groin area and his relaxed organ. 

Then Andrew's face went in together with some additions to Fra's face. 

This was a long pose, some 55 minutes, so time to reflect and bring some conscious thoughts into what was taking place on the paper. 

The form of Fra's shoulders as they appeared into view attracted my attention at this point. The horizontal line above which she appeared went in and the suggestion of her upper torso and arms. Then, with her shoulders in place I moved upwards and felt a compulsion to engage, again, with her face. This I recall was a subtle morphing process between this new face and her chin of the original face.

Then there were two final engagements: I hesitated with the idea of introducing some non-linear mark-making. Should I keep this a purely 'line' drawing? But I felt that some 3D input would benefit. So I went around the drawing and engaged with introducing some hatching to places of depth and tonal contrast. 

By this time I had introduced Fra's right eye into the composition: still not sure if this was a good idea!

My final act was to include Fra's ear over on the left of the composition. I have included the odd ear in previous drawings, often attached to or growing out of a leg (for example) but here it is just included 'cause, I liked it!

My final thought is this: You will be familiar with my fascination with the 'transparencies' of Francis Picabia, and how when I discovered his work it started a process of helping me to understand that which was happening in my own art. Well, over the past two weeks or so, I believe that this virtual process has allowed me to propel my life-drawing along a further evolutionary path, with unforeseen outcomes, which delight and keep me going!  [A big thanks to Andrew for this].

Can 'virtual' become 'real'?

 Here I am at Andrew's Monday evening session, and asking whether I want to continue with this distant engagement with the processes of drawing the life model. 

During this extraordinary year of keeping one's self in touch with the art of drawing the nude, it has been frustrating and difficult, but the pull to evolve one's art remains and, so, one continues with the endeavor. 

The difficulty and frustration, for me, arises from the complete lack of the immediate and intimate dialogue and feedback one gets from the other participants in the life-drawing studio, between poses and at coffee breaks. People who one has become to know, with whom one shares the experience, and from whom one gains support thro' comments and observations about what appears upon one's easel. 

In this situation does 'self judgement' take on a more significant role?  I believe that I have always announced my own critique of my art. And this blog holds the evidence for this claim.

So, what happened tonight?

In this first drawing of three 2 minute poses Andrew related to the architrave of a door frame. For me, in each case, the door frame became a single line against which a selected outline of his body was captured. 

During the next 10 minute and 20 minute poses I became focused, for some reason, on feet and hands, and I recall that I felt a need to somehow connect these together. My immediate impulse was to bring down into the composition Andrew's upper torso. The lines of his shoulders and upper arms then came down and made connections with the lower parts of the drawing.

This was one of those fairly regular events when I just wanted to neglect engaging with the whole pose and focus on particular parts which attracted my attention. and to morph them together in some way.

The final pose of the evening was for about 30 minutes. Andrew is seated facing the beholder. His left hand is supporting his head. But, Why did I respond in this way? 

The curled hand, coming in from the right, went in first. Then the left side of his head and his left ear, in outline. 

For some unknown reason the right side of the pose was introduced, but at a different scale. The long arm and hand went up to the head. 

At this point in the process the relationship of the two sides of the head at different scales became an issue. And I recall moving from one to the other, gradually morphing them together, debating how to differ the drawing of the eyes. 

Every so often. No! Quite frequently. In fact, after every session. There is a drawing, there is some aspect of a composition, via which has suggested I have taken an evolutionary step along my life-drawing journey 'PATHS ARE MADE BY WALKING'. The two heads morphed are just one of these. Perhaps it's just one of those 'Picabia' inspired compositions that one need s to study for a few minutes in order to understand exactly what is happening. 

Wren and her reflection.

 It's Monday April 12th at Andrew's virtual evening with Wren posing with a mirror. She did 3x5minutes, 2x15minutes and 1x40minutes. I elected before the start to do all drawings in A1 portrait format and as noted in my previous posting to keep my lines as simple and minimalist as I could. Whereas in an earlier session with mirrors I employed the straight line of the edge of the mirror as a contrasting element to the curvilinear and organic forms of the body, but here I elected to not draw the mirror edge and to perhaps bring together the pose and its reflection in my usual overlapping, superimpositional and morphing approach. All are drawn with graphite pencils except the final drawing for which I use my thick stick of willow charcoal, the lines of which I gently rubbed back with a tissue. I chose the charcoal as Wren had draped over the lower part of her body a see-through sort of gauze material which took on triangular folds in places and I thought the charcoal, used on its side, would deal with this quite well.

My cat and the minimal drawing

Getting ready for the next virtual life-drawing and thinking about furthering my minimalist approach to mark-making. By this I mean a fairly simple line in contrast to an exploratory series of marks whilst searching for the figure in the space of the paper.  And looking through my sketch book I was reminded that a few weeks ago I did two very quick drawings in it when I had decided to finish my drawing before the actual end of the pose and these just filled the time until the next pose. Also here from my sketch book is my cat done also with a fairly minimalist line.

Fra & Wren: A Celebration

This was a special virtual evening to celebrate the one year anniversary of Fra and Wren's United Models Life Drawing on-line program.

They put together a series of poses from 3x1minute, 3x2minute, 2x5minute, 2x10minute and finally 2x20minutes. We had a break before the final two poses during which we showed each other our drawings. At the end we also shared our work. I ended up with the 7 drawings posted below, but not in the sequence they were produced, and overall there were 12 poses so one or two drawings comprise aspects of more than one pose.

In the past I have tended to resist the short pose and have felt a frustration in the live sessions when the quick 'warm-ups' are started with. However, during the last year of virtual sessions I have come to adopt a way of responding to the short pose and have even found a way of accommodating the 'moving' pose. For example, rather than attempt to draw the whole pose I may elect to simply capture the outline profile of one side of the body with a singular and minimalist line. As a result of this my searching, exploratory, multi-linear mark-making has been complemented by a very confident and highly selective response. In this following group of drawings these contrasting approaches are evident.