Last class for term 4

Today we had our last class where Olivia modelled. Olivia was often sullen previously but appears to have loosened up. She was great today, striking several very interesting poses. This first one was a 10 min pose while waiting for the class to assemble.


It has been a very social class. We even ended up having lunch to mark the end of the term. I've enjoyed the artistic companionship and was quite productive even if I had less time to devote to art. The company, David's gentle suggestions and seeing how others were working gave me ideas which then led to other explorations at home.


As he did previously we did a composite drawing, 5 mins of 4 people drawing. This turned out better than I had expected.

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.

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!

Erica

Our model this week was a pleasant surprise: Erica is plump and uninhibited. It's nice to see someone so comfortable with her body even if it's not model material. David had us try drawing contours and overlapping them with some great results.


I suggested that it would look great as brush and ink or even abstracted further and coloured in. Which excited me so much that I made an attempt at home.


I used canvas which was not friendly to pencil and cannot be rubbed off much to my annoyance! An improvement is to offset the colour slightly from the ink to lend it more interest or to vary the line thickness which I'll try next time.


Erica's curves made me feel quite good about my own body. How to feel good- draw someone fatter than you!





This last one is a portrait of Erica done to practise facial proportions. Erica has a very pleasant face : she appears very approachable. I decided not to include her pendulous boobs here so as not to distract from her face.

Life drawing class 1

Having decided that my art could do with the discipline of regular practice, I enrolled in David Wilsher's life drawing classes again. Tutors tend to make certain that lighting is good and they always have tips to share. Our model was Olivia and once again I struggle with shading. Also met Leanne who was in the NAS course with me. She is very good and I think I can learn a lot from her as well.

Drawings from the SCCC Course

I enrolled in September 2008 at a life drawing course at the SCCC, having finally found the opportunity to do something for myself amidst responsibilities with work and family. This was the catalyst to rekindle my interest in visual arts. My tutor, David Wilsher was great. Very encouraging and gave me some new techniques to try. In the beginning, I was of course, not very good at all. But slowly, I discovered my preferred style and was even confident enough to attempt very foreshortened poses.