The problem with the first pose is that there is very little tonal variation to respond to. Although the fenestration in the studio is to the right, and hence this is the principal source of light, unfortunately the wall to the model's left is light in colour and extremely reflective. So I was inventing darker tones which were not actually present and so the drawing, to me, appears rather flat. I would expect the left side of her back to be in shadow. But it is very difficult to draw what is not there. The pose itself was also quite challenging in that a concentration of arms, legs and feet were contained within a small triangle in comparison to the larger rectangular area of back and bottom. This is charcoal on A2 cartridge.
The second drawing jumps to A1 and I wanted to explore the complexity of arms, legs and feet and avoid the previous issue of lack of tonal variation to the left side of the back. But just how is it possible to get so many aspects of a life drawing wrong? In particular look at the tiny 'withered' right fore-arm, and then compare this to the massive and 'thick' left calf and lower leg. Then how did the left foot grow to such a size? It is a strange phenomena: one can look, and look again and again at each part and study and compare each part to the proportion and size of other parts, and still it comes out wrong. In looking at the drawing after two days these faults are obvious. At the time I didn't see them. Is this a matter of lack of experience, a lack of visuaI skills, a blindness to proporation and scale, a distraction with some other aspect of the life drawing, or what? As an architect I rather pride myself in not having these deficiences, or at least I did. Maybe, life drawing is something different. I could correct the drawing, but will not, and will learn from the experience.
I seem to need to break into colour after a tonal study in charcoal. So on a blue/grey A2 pastel paper I searched for the colours in the body and finished the drawing off with some added charcoal work. What is wrong with this drawing? Well, I didn't find the pose itself particularly inspiring, but apart from that the body is rather 'stiff', and I have given her a joyless facial expression. In both of these, the model is not!There you go!
Incidently, Peter Seabourne who runs the class, hung a red sheet on the wall behind the model for this second pose, to nulify the refected light. It worked, with some shadow in evidence on the back and a suggestion of reflected red on the upper thigh.
