At 'Exreme Poses' on November 24th, and an anticipation.

I am pursuing my recent lighter touch with my two-handed fine-liner technique and not returning to a line and going over it in order to imbue it with a greater emphasis and thereby creating variation in my marks and contrasts in weight of line. You will see that no new image on my paper has resulted from the morning's five poses and what changes, if any,  are presented here are simply part of my gradual evolutionary development.

The anticipation is to do with my looking forward to what might take place in my life-drawing journey in a day or two when I drive the 40 miles westwards into Powys to attend Niel Bally's studio over in Talgarth. Three days of concentrated and focussed life-drawing has in the past initiated unexpected movement in drawing technique, perceptual process, discovery of previously untapped creativity, and a confirmation that one's life-drawing journey has no destination, i.e. paths are made by walking.

This is me

A particular characteristic of my mark-making has been highlighted by both Paul Fowler and myself in a detail of a larger A1 drawing. Paul suggested he had not seen me draw like this before. I agree with him up to a point. But it is not unique. It has arisen before. Rarely. But when it has it is an outcome of a free, speedy, intuitive, unconstrained response by me, thro' my hands, via my pens, on to my paper.

So, here to start with is the drawing which Paul got so excited about. There then follows a number of cropped details which suggest that every so often I enter this very special place.

Hand and Face

Recently a face profile has been included in my drawings and often this appears with an accompanying hand. Sometimes they appear adjacently in the pose, at other times I juxtapose them as part of my reconstructive process. When this happens sometimes it is consciously done but more likely the relationship is part of an intuitively random event. Here are cropped details of these events from the past few months:

Drawing Paul on November 17th

Paul Boon is a professional Portrait & Life Model and is now a regular at Paul Fowler's 'Extreme Poses' over in Stroud, England. He raises himself to the task of presenting challenging poses as he poises between the ceiling suspended straps and floor based plinths. He and Paul Fowler spend time discussing the potential offered by this unique stage. As a result people travel quite some distances to avail themselves of this stimulating and enjoyable three hour session of five 30 minute poses, on a Wednesday and Thursday mornings (I attend the Thursday session). From Malvern, Somerset and Wales life-drawers join with more local folk in what continues to be a fulfilling shared experience in which we all learn from each other.

A fairly straightforward start to the morning concentrating on his feet and knees which were at my eye level one metre away.

The strength of the arm supporting his upper body weight, his hand on the edge of a plinth. I was attracted by the folds of flesh at the elbow. Also attracted by the relationship of the foot to the edge of the plinth. So I latched on to a narrative of foot, hand and knee, and their relationships with plinth. An outline profile of his back helps integrate the composition.

I was unhappy with the heavy continuous lines in the first two drawings, and felt the resultant mark-making did not match how I wanted to be seen to respond to the pose. I have frequently claimed that my drawing is a record of my exploration of a pose and so my mark-making should say much more about 'process', i.e. 'how my looking helps me to see',  'how the drawing is made',  as opposed to the final drawing being a refined finished product.

So I very deliberately, with a fine-liner pen in each hand, set about exploring the shapes of the outline of the right side of the pose from his arm (at the top right) all the way down to the dangling foot. I then moved my attention over to his left side, but at a larger scale, because I wanted to engage with the folds of skin at the elbow, the veins pumping with blood, and the distinctive shapes of the fingers and thumb of the left hand. 

Then, I noticed that between his left arm and his thigh I could see his foot being supported upon a folded towel on a plinth. This then entered my composition, bringing in depth, perspective and spatiality.

My mark-making in this drawing is a product of a fairly speedy and exploratory approach, and one which I feel I want to indulge in, in the upcoming sessions.

Paul Fowler was amazingly enthusiastic about the dangling foot. He commented that he had not seen this before in my work. I too felt that here was a drawing (of the foot) which said how I see. And how I see, in an unconstrained, intuitive, sub-conscious way. [I will add at the end of this post a detail of this foot]

Finally, my drawings of poses Nos 4 & 5.

So, I have just focused in on the dangling foot.

There are a number of lines of different weights;

i.e. the first: quick, form exploring, lightly touching the paper,

followed by heavier focused intensities at the back of the foot and the heel,

then a final form mid-tone lines giving emphasis to the shape

[It all happened so quick. Is this a recollection of what actually happened? Is it a drawing of a foot?]

What I do know, is that I have a feeling that the process of its making, and the variety and diversity of line, are particular and special to me. Where I am in my life-drawing journey, at this moment in time, this detail announces.

Drawing Shelley on November 10th

The usual five 30 minute poses over at Paul Fowler's 'Extreme Poses' in Stroud.

Started off with my frequent approach of superimposing parts which attracted me. Commencing with the elbow and arm I then noticed how this was resting on the knee of her left leg and then I just had to explore how the whole weight of her body was taken down to her foot. And I do so love drawing feet large. 

Drawn to the same scale her right knee would have been way off the paper over to the right so I pulled it across along with the part of the plinth it was resting on. The line of the outline of her back from shoulder down to her bottom was introduced to bring the parts into a holistic composition. To complete my reconstructed Shelley I placed her right foot and her left hand each with a straight line (the hand seems to be emerging from a slit in the paper the line of which is a strap some 20cm in front of the hand itself, and the foot sits on the plinth). The suggestion of the head by including a few lines of  hair was quickly drawn right at the end, but I feel its inclusion is essential to convey the curled up nature of the pose.

No deconstruction here! So I have found it fascinating to compare this drawing with the outcome of the deconstructed process in the first drawing.

I went straight for her face somewhat squeezed between her knee and upper arm. Then the rest just followed. I do recall wondering, having drawn the face at quite a large scale, and having decided very deliberately not to deconstruct and therefor not to chance a violation of her beautiful form, how much of the pose I would get on the paper. I recall being very relieved when, as I journeyed down her body, I discovered I found myself including the lines of the plinth. With the straight lines of the plinth the narrative of the pose and its composition was complete.

Colleagues were very complementary of this drawing. Shelley is sort of seated, above my eye level, with her back to me and is supported by straps suspended from the ceiling. Singular confident lines firstly of the profile of her right side, then of her left side, and these two profiles are brought close together. At this point I sat back, looked at the clock, and found that about 20 minutes of the 30 minute pose still remained. After giving my next move some thought, some conscious thought, something I rarely do, I decided to include the rest of her body within my view. To be able to actually see any of the rest of her body I moved my easel and myself slightly to my left, from where I could then see the top of her one thigh and one foot and lower leg.  After a while I became conscious of the presence of two hands which for some reason were un-noticed at the beginning.

The underside of the foot and its supporting strap went in first. Then the breast on the thigh. Then as with the first drawing the outline profile of her back down to her bottom went in on the left hand side again with the aim of holding all the individual and separated parts together. A knee appears and is handled in the same way as the top left hand in the first drawing with a straight line of a strap passing in front of it. I value the role of straight lines as they are able to contrast with and so emphasise the natural, organic, sensuous characteristic of the body.

Although only some parts of the body are included and these are drawn at varying scales I believe any beholder will be able to interpret the form of the overall pose. However, I am not really interested in whether this will happen. I suppose that these days I might claim that I am simply making a study of the parts which attract me, but there must exist by now some rules and criteria which influence how the parts juxtapose, and these are more sub-conscious than they are a set of externalised and rationalised parameters. 

I have suggested above that compositional issues are addressed but I do not set out to produce what might be referred to as a coherent life-drawing, but when a colleague informs that they recognise or understand or can see the pose then something of interest has in fact taken place. I would go as far as to claim that on many occasions my record of my exploration of a pose says something extra by extracting and highlighting key components and fascinating aspects of that which I am looking at. I do claim that it informs how I am seeing things.

Lots of toes

Going back over the past few postings we come across two drawings of toes. I talk about them: the toes of Paul Boon in which the tonal and sculptural qualities are explored with charcoal, and the toes of Amy in a two-handed fine-liner pen drawing.

And it's Amy again.

When we had Amy last week I talked about it being something of a bump in my journey. She presents something different and so one responds differently. My analysis suggested it was very different and so were my drawings. Now we had her for a second time, I guess we had time to make an adjustment, and the learning from last week had entered our subconscious and so we were prepared for another dose.

Lets see what happened:

Nothing different about these first two drawings. Seem to have retreated into my comfort zone. The process of collaging selected parts into a new format is now a well established part of my repertoire. And the character and qualityof my mark-making has been seen before.

The other week we had the model Paul sitting on his feet with an array of toes to draw. Then I responded by using charcoal in order to explore the tonal and sculptural qualities. Here, Amy included her hands to present a very complex array of fingers and toes. And I decided to see if this time I could handle the project with fine-liner pens. I feel the toes are very successful whereas the fingers are handled rather clumsily. The problem was that Amy found she need to unfold twice during the half hour of the pose and her fingers didn't get back into the same positions. But I didn't get the fingers of her left hand quite right at the beginning anyway. The pen is unforgiving........once a mark is made then there it stays!

I really liked the whole pose, so at the end I did a very quick 3 minute sketch to capture the form. Paul Fowler's comment was that he had never seen me draw like this before. I didn't feel it was something new. I'll enlarge at the end of this posting so we can have a good look.

Following on from Paul's comment I attempted to transfer and utilise this somewhat sketchy quick technique in a full A1 thirty minute response to the next pose. Amy set herself right up in front of me on a plinth and I was immediately attracted to the feet and legs.

Finally I was looking down upon Amy as she curled herself up.

And here is the 3 minute quickie:

(click on it and take a good look at my mark-making)