Ocean pools

I originally took up life drawing to learn how to draw figures for a beach scene. Ocean pools are my favourite spots in the whole world and they evoke summer and a lovely cool dip in salty water. Anyway, I got diverted along the way but finally inspired by a few exhibitions where ocean pools and beaches were the subject. Started on a canvas of Wylie Bath in Coogee one of my favourite hang outs.


This is the background which is now ready for me to paint sun bathers in the foreground. I may have to rope in my family and friends to model for me! My daughter has obligingly posed as a diver and expects to see herself in a picture soon.

Jacqui again

Last week the model was Harold, a 77 year old West Indian. He has a magnificent physique for his age but alas as he was old, he did a lying pose which meant that we couldn't see his shoulders or chest. This week Jacqui returns. When requested to do 2 min poses she offered a series of ballet poses. She was with the Australian Ballet for years and years. The strength involved in keeping pointe for 2 mins! Incredible! Here are two of my favourites from this session. The second has us attempting to use tones only, no lines.





Poor Jacqui has to have a hip replacement at the age of 47. Ballet is not body friendly.

Joanna again

At the sketch club on Sunday Joanna was the model again. She is as gorgeous as ever, and has these curves, very feminine. What I adore is her rounded belly and breasts. She looks like what a woman should look; not thin and anorexic.


I made a few sketches on coloured paper, with some pastels.


Look at how graceful she looks. I would love to paint Joanna.

Study in motion

Further to our experiments in capturing motion, I did some drawings of a flamenco dancer from a YouTube video. She was simply gorgeous. Just pausing frame by frame I did 5 stills which I overlaid with the following results.


For those puzzled, it is meant to be 'read' left to right. At the start she is poised ready to move her arms, at the last frame she is in full motion. Interestingly, flamenco is supposed to focus more on feet tapping but there are very distinctive arm movements as well. Flamenco dancing is not fluid, it reminds me of a sleek large cat, long pauses ready to spring and then the frenzy of the kill.

Jacqui the dancer

Jacqui was our model this week. She was a dancer in her past life, and her body is the typical ballet dancer - slim, not busty, fine boned and with beautiful hands. I guess ballet teaches one how to hold the hands elegantly. All of us in the class really appreciated Jacqui because she was willing to hold more difficult poses for a longer period. Also because she was a dancer, she struck the most elegant poses. Continuing our theme from last week, David wanted us to draw motion. This time, he asked Jacqui to hold 4 positions for 1 minute. Each position was a continuum in the movement. I attempted to draw all 4 in one spot, which resulted in a tangle of arms, legs, etc. Was not a good idea. Then, just to make things even more challenging, David asked her to repeat a series of movement for 4 minutes. At first, I was perplexed... how can one capture anything moving?? But then I realised that capturing her arms would be good and this time, draw the arms offset from each other. Then the legs. This is the results - which I'm pretty pleased with.


I think that I may have found a way to convey motion at long last! I've been attempting to capture flamenco dancers in action by pausing the video frame after frame, the results so far have been less than satisfactory. Another picture I was pleased about is this portrait, which tried to convey a mood. She appears pensive. I would have liked to have captured Jacqui's exquisite hands better, but ran out of time.


In the class, one other student was experimenting with different media. We both tried black paper today. The trick with black paper is that you have to highlight the bright bits and rub away the dark bits. It is sort of reverse of a normal charcoal drawing. Anyway, here is my attempt.

Male model

This week we had Andrew pose for us. Male models don't appear as popular because people like drawing the female form. For myself, I find men interesting in that their muscle tone are better defined. However, the ding dong at rest is still a problem to draw. Especially when you get a well-defined set as happened today. To focus on it would be pornographic, to ignore it is not realistic. To add to this dilemma Andrew likes ropes as props which lends shades of bondage to the picture. How would I explain such a picture on my wall to my mother, for example? Hmmmm....


As you can see, I've extended my technique to include ink and wash this week. Made some attempts at capturing movement but that wasn't too successful. This next one was a pastel attempt and I really like it.


You can see my attempts to fudge the ding dong. My husband rarely looks at my art works, except when they are in front of his nose but he scrutinizes them intently when it's a male model. I don't know what he's looking for .... But it amuses me greatly!