Great night last night

What a great night last night. We usually start with a series of 90 sec sketches to loosen up. Last night we did something different. The model would take a step, and hold it for about 60 sec and then make another movement. He started on the floor and stepped onto the stage and off again. It was kind of frustrating at first until I found my subject. His feet and legs. I just drew the feet and legs and nothing else. I didn't even actually draw the stage but I drew him on and off of it. I think it turned out quite well.

The next pose was about 40 min and this one really came together well. I feel good about the proportions and the face and to overall feeling of the piece. Soemtimes, when you actually draw a face on a life drawing if feels that you need to alot too much time to the face and it looks out of sorts with the quality of the rest of the drawing. Not this time, this seems to mesh very well.

Things clicked last night!

Another great model last night. She was very easygoing and had some really great poses.
The top sketch is from the beginning of class, I just felt the proportions on this on were really better than my average.
The middle is the 2nd hour sketch and there are a few things that don't work about this, I felt this was a good example of my "stretching" I got out of my comfort zone and used some chalk and tried to create and entire feeling instead of just drawing the model.
The bottom one was the last sketch of the night and it just felt right. It turned out to be a real good portrait, it looks just like the model. So I was real happy with that.

Comments and crit are always welcome.

Very Satisfying Session Tuesday!

Another great model Tuesday. She was very creative and he had nice curves to draw. The focus this week was to incorporate items into the drawing, to create a narrative in the piece. I thought it turned out very good, I was very pleased with my sketches this week.

The bottom on was the model and a mannequin, in an embrace.

The top one was the last pose of the evening, I took some liberties with her figure and tried to exaggerate the "warrior woman" theme of the pose.

Great Model on Thursday!

This was the last pose on Thursday. This guy was great, he is a dancer and during the exercises he was making some great poses, very interesting and dramatic. Most of the class was done on newsprint, doing movement exercises. But this last one was great lighting contrast and I really felt I got a lot out of this pose. Let me know what you think.

Nine in 9

Great class last night! We did an exercise of 9 sketches / 9 minutes. We did 9 sketches and took 9 minutes on each sketch. The instructor challenged us to use a varitiy of media and/or techniques and use some of the things we talked about in class, like composition. I found it very challenging, and by the ninth sketch, I was drained. The top sketch was a 40 minute sketch at the end of class. The head is WAY too big and that really messed my appreciation of the body I drew. I was really happy with the proportion of the body and I pushed and tried to spend some quality time on the face and messed it all up. argh.

Thursday Class 4/30/09

So last night was a pretty satisfying class. We started out with 8 90-sec sketches and we did a couple of ink wash poses for about 15-20 minutes. Second-half of the class was a "freestyle" pose of about 25-30 minutes. I got 2 charcoal pieces done, The middle one was first and I start out with these broad lines that just kinda worked and after a while, I liked where it was at and didn't figure that I was going to improved it any. So I did the bottom one in about 10 min. Darker charcoal and smudged it all around and took the eraser to it to bring up the highlights and neaten it up a bit. The top page is 3, 5-min poses and I did them all on the same page. Again, in charcoal.

Thursday Class Homework - Done

Homework this week was to sketch 3 figurative sculptures. I chose, (From the top down) Rodin's Pierre de Wissant, Tadolini's St Michael the Archangel and St. Michael Casting Satan into Hell by Vaccaro. I found that the Rodin was surprisingly challenging and the Vaccaro was the most satisfying. Maybe not the best execution, but pretty satisfying. All took a little over and hour to do. Please, comments and crit would be very welcome.

From Thursday's Class

We had a great model for class Thursday. The first sketch was a 10-minute pose where she was moving slightly during the pose and so it threw weveryone for a loop. I thought is was a great exercise.

The one above that is charcoal on newsprint and I thought it was a really nice pose. I should have spent a little more time on the eye, I just threw it on there and it is obviously not right for the face. But I thought I got some nice subtle shadows of the back.

The top one was my favorate of the night, harsh contrast and a great pose. I needed to use some white charcoal to really beef up the lighting, cause just erasing wasn't getting the point across.

Spring Break Homework (cont'd)

Well I finally finished my Spring Break homework. I choose "Crucifixion of St. Peter" by Guido Reni, I loved the drama of the moment, great contrast and more than one person in the painting. I used charcoal for this, and this is in my sketchbook, I really worried about getting a mess everywhere...I just gotta get over that...

The top picture is "St. Jerome" by Leonardo da Vinci. I only had one day to do this one and I pretty much finished it in about an hour and a half. I thought I really captured the look and feel of the original.

I was planning on doing a Singer-Sargent, Nude Egyptian Girl, but as I was doing okay with the body, the face, the real key to the painting was just giving me fits. I even did a study just of the face and I was just not having any luck with it....So I bailed, because the teacher should be able to tell what painting the sketch was from and without nailing the face, there was no way he was going to be able to tell it was a Sargent. Anyway, I was pretty proud of my homework.

Catching up on posts

On Spring Break...These are from a couple of weeks ago. The top one is focusing on light and dark, no greys, just light or dark.

The bottom on is just a freestyle, last one of the night, just using charcoal.

LOL! I was a model last night!

Okay, so we didn't have a pro model last night so the instructor asked if anyone would volunteer. A calssmate and I stepped up. These two are by my instructor and one of my classmates. "Drawing you without actually drawing any of 'you'..."

This one is the one I did of my classmate. I was really happy with how it turned out. The edges aren't as sharp as I would like, but it feels real and I think looks a lot like her. Again, drawing someone without actually drawing any of 'them'. Interesting format.

Thursday's Skeleton part deux

The second half of the class I took to another perspective and this one went a lot smoother even though I wasn't able to get as much detail, I found that the proportion and scale was a lot easier in this sketch. I am really happy with this one.

Thursdays Skeleton

This was from last Thursday class, we didn't have a live model, but we did have a fairly dead one...The instructor postioned her, instead of just having her hang there (which is always better, am I right guys??) Anyway. I thought is was an interesting study. I was really working on my proportions. I found I really had to fight making the figure too wide, and even though I had to adjust the ribcage, like three times, I think I got it pretty good.

Darks, Lights and Comfort Zones...

So last nights class was so much more satisfying that Tuesday's class. But I was totally out of my comfort zone, and I loved it. The class focused on lights and darks, and we use water with charcoal and ink. The first skull was charcoal and then used a wet brush to use the charcoal like an paint. It was very uncomfortable but I think for my first use, it turned out alright, I mean it looks like a skull.

The second was much more straightforward, ink and a brush. We did some pencils to give the shape and then added inks for values. I have to say, working on paper this size (18x24) really made me feel free, like a had room to breathe. I think the brush and ink really needs this kind of space to open up and helped be feel ambitious.