2nd Entry for July 24, 2009

For the second half of the evening I worked on a 1.5 hour study, in the `structural drawing' mode I was practising in advance of a 3-day workshop at the TSA. This is done on a 24 x 36" sheet of Durotone `white newsprint' colour paper, with 2H and 2B pencils.
The set-up was meant to evoke a cottage country roadside stand, and much of that didn't resonate with my response to Z- , but as perspective rendering challenges, the objects around her were worth setting down. Z- insisted I include the plastic dinosaur. I was more than happy to honour that request, as I've never encountered a Dimetrodon I didn't like - and this one was very cute.
As with all these blog entries, if you click on any of these images, you can see a larger-scale version of them.

1st entry for July 24, 2009

On Friday I rejoined Z- at the TSA, where she was doing the 2nd half of a 2-week pose. This study is approximately 2 hours, HB conte crayon on 24 x 36" newsprint.

Entry for July 19, 2009

After a family get-together, I got out to the last hour of the Sunday drawing session at TSA. E- was working, someone I hadn't drawn before. The head studies were both about 15 minutes, and the reclining pose was a 20-minute one.

Entry for July 17, 2009

Friday offered another opportunity to draw Z- , as she was sitting over at the TSA for a 2-week painting session.
I drew her from a couple of angles. I was trying to channel a bit of a German `New Objectivity' verist frankness to the imagesof this body I know so well.

3rd entry for July 16th, 2009

Due to another project on the go, faces are very much in my mind. Trying in part to channel the spirit of a Jenny Saville painting that has stuck in my memory, I asked Z- to try to let her face go slack while she was lying down. She stayed like this for over a half-hour. I like the ambivalent expression it engendered.

Later, she told me that it was really hard to keep her mouth slightly open like this, resisting the twin tendencies of going agape or closing. It's hard to know what will be physically taxing for a particular person to do, but it is fair to say that all the models I have drawn are working very hard as they keep still.

Just how hard it is to keep still one can only know by doing it oneself. The models all do an amazing job of downplaying just how much stress they undergo, Z- included on this occasion.

2nd entry for July 16th, 2009

These were two more of the sprawled-out warm-up poses that Z- did. They were about 5 minutes each. To me, these studies have a slightly loose and stylised quality - coupled with a touch of conscious eroticism, a little akin to some of the drawings of Gustav Klimt and Henri Matisse.

Entry for July .16th, 2009

On the Thursday night, Z- very generously gave some time to working at my studio. We worked on trying out some poses and studies that were more personal, and less `academic'. These were two 5-minute warm-up poses she took.

Entry for July 12th, 2009

After taking down the Rejects show (a fairly easy task...), I went to the last hour of the TSA Sunday night session. S- was working. I like drawing her, so I was sorry I wasn't able to be there for more of that session. These were all 15-minute poses.

Entry for July 9th, 2009

On Thursday I took time out of prepping for the Rejects show, and followed Z- to Artists 25, where she was in the second week of a portrait session. I didn't get a spot-on likeness, but came close. The grey study took about 1.5 hours, and is Conte crayon on 24 x 36 newsprint.
The sandy-coloured one is about 45 minutes, Conte on Japanese paper. At the time, Z- was saying she felt that the Japanese paper one was sitting in the `uncanny valley' territory for her - disturbing in its closeness to her, but more disturbing due to still being off somehow. In the image posted here, I slightly compressed the lower part of her face and neck, and to me it reads much better - what a difference little proportional shifts (5% or so) make to a face.
The eyes are still not right - I was too far away to see them clearly (and too lazy to stand up and come closer...)

4th entry for July 5th, 2009

These were 20-minute and 25-minute poses. I like drawing E- . Her persona is very matter-of-fact, at least on the surface, but I get a sense of life experience as well. Her figure is the antithesis of the svelte `fashion-model' type. For me her beauty resides in that ampleness, and a sense of a life lived.

3rd entry for July 5th, 2009

These poses were all in the 10-minute range

2nd entry for July 5th, 2009

These were 5-minute studies.

1st entry for July 5th, 2009

On sunday E- was working. I like different things about the way different people pose. With E- , it is her matter-of-factness. No pretzel-type poses, just very basic actions of sitting, stretching, standing etc. These are 1-minute poses that she did.

3rd entry for July 3rd, 2009

These were 20-minute poses.

2nd entry for July 3rd, 2009

These were 15-minute studies. While I was enjoying the drawing process, I was also feeling that night that from this point things were not holding in focus as well as I would have liked. I was wrestling with keeping the proportions in line, with varying degrees of success.
Drawing D- at Artists 25 had been a bit of a peak for me, and in my experience things always drop off a little after that. I was also conscious of wanting to draw L- as a very real person, not as just a distanced "model". Once again, this was working with varying degrees of success.
I was

1st entry for July 3rd, 2009

On Friday L- was working at the TSA. These are a 5-minute standing pose and two 10-minute studies.

6th Entry for July 2, 2009

(The weekend's exhibition adventure is all over as of July 12th, but for the tidying. It was a good experience.)
These are the last of this Thursday night session. They were all 10-minute poses.

5th Entry for July 2, 2009

These were two 5-minute and one 10-minute studies.

4th Entry for July 2, 2009

These were 5-minute studies. This is being posted after a very enjoyable opening of the "Rejects" exhibition, which also runs Saturday the 11th and Sunday, July 12th.

3rd entry for July 2, 2009

These were 3-minute poses. B- is a dancer, and somehow the visual effect of a person in a slip - a domestic garment rather than a public performance one - made the act of standing and balancing on the trapeze a few feet above the ground seem like it could be an image from some dance performance.
Not sure what the balancing might be a metaphor for...