So I finally decided to head back to life drawing after a long break. It was a mistake not to keep going with drawing from when I left off. I have been practising hands but not the figure itself, going back last Thursday was a bit of a shock to me. I don’t feel like I’ve gotten worse, but I don’t feel like I have improved. I’m always looking for that moment I had with this session, where I feel I’ve broken through some sort of invisible barrier. At that particular session I felt I was beginning to understand the mediums I was using and understanding the figure as a whole. That moment is there waiting for me again, I just have to work harder to get to it.
This session’s model was a male called Andrew. I haven’t really drawn males before apart from the first session, when the model had a very difficult figure. I don’t think I’ve made much progress in this session since it felt like I was starting out again.
30 Second poses. I quite enjoy working with colour.
1 minute poses.
5 minute poses. I believe the last one was the most successful out of this lot. I mapped out the figure in this pose and believe the proportions are almost correct.
I had a go at drawing faces. I’m not sure if I should be drawing faces at the moment because I’m still so new to drawing the figure. I often wonder if I should be concentrating on just the figure? But isn’t the face part of the figure as a whole?
The only 10 minute pose I managed to get.
As usual with these sessions there was a long pose at the end for an hour and a half. I like to start again every 20 minutes and see what I’ve missed. While this has been successful for me in the past, on this night I felt like ripping up almost everything I’ve drawn.
I’m beginning to think the materials I’m using are holding me back. Currently I only use willow charcoal and colour pastels. I’ve been using these because it was what I was most comfortable with. I think I need to explore different mediums such as conte and compressed charcoal to start with. I don’t know if this is good or not but I’ve noticed other people in the session use a range of materials with excellent results (even if they won’t admit it). I will probably try working with a range of mediums next Thursday instead of restricting myself to just one.
Leave a Reply