High winds and torrential rain reduced the planned 3 days to two. Niel then extended the drawing time by two hours on the two days. The amazing Annie again is our model. My previous posting gives an introduction, and here is my output starting with the first set of quickies on the first morning.
We start with some so called 'warm-up' one minute poses to which my response is a line or two to capture the essence of each pose. This might be simply a outline profile from shoulder to knee, or perhaps a hand, etc. I'm using a fine-liner pen in each hand.
A second piece of paper but the quickies soon came to an end, so a few minimalist responses
Two poses here, up to five minutes each. Firstly the seated in which Annie has her right hand pulling her right foot towards her. Then a recall of my 'superimpositioning and transparency' approach which allows the second pose to form a frame or compositional context for the first. Then in order to help the beholder to distinguish between the two I have added a bit of tone (sort of related to my 'revisiting programme').
Turning my paper to a landscape format is fairly unusual for me. I did it here in anticipation I might morph two side-by-side poses together. This I did but only to a slight extent as they remain quite separate. I'm using a graphite pencil (woodless 2B's) in each hand to map out the basics then going in to firm up the forms using my dominant hand. I spent quite a time dealing with the 'looking-down' perspective on the head and the twist of the body.
Again a fairly short pose so a quick few lines to engage with the basic form, followed by a tonal emphasis of charcoal rubbed with the finger and some cross hatching with a 2B graphite pencil. A 'mountainous' landscape result or perhaps after Rodin.
I mentioned to Annie that I would be attempting to avoid my 'deconstructivist' approach and place an emphasis during these two days on attempting the whole pose, and not to violate its beauty by pulling it apart. But then it appears I couldn't resist the temptation to focus in on different parts and to use different scales. So we have the hands on the back of the chair with the breasts just behind as parts of the first viewpoint. But then Annie's feet somehow appear and morph into the back of the chair. Meanwhile at some point in the process I found a need to bring in almost the full length of the pose from foot up to the shoulder. My eye was moving around the pose and as it focussed on a particular part, that part arrived on the paper, and so on.
This was an exciting twisted pose the basic form of which arrived easily on my paper, and I recall I wanted to emphasise the hands which I did in fine-liner pen. Niel was right to suggest cropping the paper would enhance the form. Perhaps this is much more Rodinesque but again without the eroticism.
A charcoal drawing. I used a black Derwent tinted charcoal caressed in sweeps with a soft tissue, a stick of willow charcoal to provide some lines of emphasis, fingers were also used to blend in charcoal for the darker tonal areas, then finally to introduce an element of excitement I threw at the paper some charcoal powder using a toothbrush as the weapon. Because the paper was almost vertical this last addition utilised gravity to create the streaky effect.
You will be able to make out the back of Annie, drawn twice. The one on the right of the drawing includes her shoulder, the ends of her fingers of her right hand as it clasps her arm, and her left breast. Her right leg is supported on her left thigh and comes across the composition in front of the left hand figure (this may not be the case, as the leg may have entered the composition from somewhere else. I really cannot recall). What transforms this into an abstract composition is the way I have responded to shadow. I outlined each shadow area and then blocked in with a sepia tinted charcoal which I rubbed in with my finger. I then placed an emphasis on the darker tonal area with charcoal which again I rubbed in with a finger.
I am unable to recall what took place here (perhaps an example of my life-drawing activity entering a deeply meditative state, the details of which I am unable to recall after the event).
You will see that Annie did a number of laying poses and after an hour or two she would turn around to give people an opportunity the opposing view. She would then repeat this. So you will see that the last two drawings result from these changes in position. And in them I moved back and forth from fine-liner pen on the first to brush applying charcoal powder with water on the second.
There is quite a bit of heading into the unknown with these last two. Here are two good examples of what I referred to in my previous posting as
'trial and (error) success, experimentation and accidental outcome'. In the first I am attempting to superimpose a drawing of one part upon another, and to discover whether each remains clear, defined and understood. I have frequently attempted this before but this time I was very conscious of what I was doing, I studied what was taking place on my paper whilst it was taking place. This drawing did not come from the heart. However, by contrast the second drawing did come from within: I intuitively brushed my medium on to the paper and played with it to seek tonal variation.
