3rd entry for October 19, 2009

These were some 3-minute and 5-minute poses that K- took. Like the majority of the works documented here, they are done with HB Conte crayon on 24" x 36" sheets of newsprint.

2nd entry for October 19, 2009

All of these were in the 2-minute to 3-minute range

1st entry for October 19, 2009

On Monday morning I tried out a new drawing session, at the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario) school. I was surprised to find that K- was the model there as well.
These were some 1-minute poses she did at that session

3rd entry for October 18, 2009

These are two 20-minute studies that ended the evening. I didn't succeed in getting the likeness quite right in the foreshortened view, but succeeded fairly well in the more upright study.

3rd entry for October 18, 2009

These were 10- minute and 15-minute poses that K- took. I was starting to get more `in groove' on these, I felt.

This post marks a tiny milestone in my worldview. I started posting life studies on this Blogger site in late November last year, and this is the 365th post I've made.

Being away from my statistics-gathering job, I'm talking a lot less about numbers and stats on the blog. (Also, the visit numbers are much less remarkable than the older Yahoo 360 site.)
But being post 365 (and still a month prior to a full year) that means that while I have not put up a post every single day so far, on balance I am averaging slightly more than one post a day this year, and that has been one of my goals - to have one-a-day drawing post. More like 2 or 3 a day, in practice.

It has been a good spur to stay disciplined in my life drawing practice, these last couple of years. Thanks as always to everyone who takes an interest and has a look at these.

2nd entry for October 18, 2009

These are studies of two 5-minute sitting poses and a 10-minute standing one. I tend to fuss with people's faces while drawing, so the amount of body depicted in any longer study is directly proportional to how easily I can set down the person's head on the page.

I feel that a person's face is the seat of a large component of their specific identity. Depicting people as very specific entities is important to me, so getting their likeness matters a lot. I wasn't having an easy time of it on the Sunday night, and most of the 10-minute studies were unsuccessful efforts to draw K- 's face to a satisfactory degree.

It is worth adding that likeness - and to a further level expression - are not the sole site of identity. Body language is a part, too. Even if all one sees is someone's back, it contributes to who they are and how that seems at that moment.

1st entry for October 18, 2009

These were some 5-minute and some 2-minute studies from the Sunday night, when K- was working. These days, 5 minutes is an awkward transitional time span: a little longer than necessary for a gesture study, too short to get much specific detail in, but long enough to try anyway.
The 2-minute studies are often more satisfying overall because they function more as extended gesture studies.

3rd entry for October 15, 2009

These were 15 and 20-minute poses, and wrapped up the evening. I find trying to set down Y- 's likeness is an engaging challenge.

2nd entry for October 15, 2009

These were 15-minute poses. Some might not be happy having consecutive back views, but I like drawing people's backs. It is a small point in the grand scheme of who he is, but Y- I noticed had one of the leanest lower backs I've come across. Sitting like this, the margins of his Quardatus Lumborum muscles, all the vertebral bumps down through the sacrum and the back edge of his iliac spines all show in relief at the small of his back. Usually one just sees a couple of dimples & a lot of padding there.

It is always fascinating to me how a body's structure expresses itself differently in people.

1st entry for October 15, 2009

These are two 10-minute studies and one 1-minute study of Y- , who was at the TSA on Thursday night. Owing to a big book give-away at OCAD, I missed the first set of poses he did.
I know Y- from a long time ago, and he is an active portraitist himself. He adjudged the face study as having `pathos', which is okay in my books.

I might add that for me, a portrait study looking right into someone's eyes is the hardest to draw, as I still feel awkward meeting my sitter's gaze. I had a sense that Y- didn't feel uncomfortable at all meeting my gaze - or having mine meet his - and that helped. Usually any degree of likeness goes out the window in that situation, but this does have a good sense of Y- about it, in my mind.

2nd entry for October 13, 2009

These were the last 2 poses of the evening - a 20-minute reclining pose and a 25-minute standing pose. It seemed quite a long time for H- to sustain the pose with her arms outstretched up high like that, but it was her choice. Because of the stretch of her arms I figured the pose would occupy a square space, and set her lower on my page. I miscalculated & ran out of room for her feet (guess I could have continued on another sheet).

I have been drawing H- many times through the years, some times more successful than others. Towards the start of this pose, she had a mischevious smile that was a flashback to her younger, even more carefree self. That helped to dispel a degree of rote-ness that can set in when drawing someone very familiar.

1st entry for October 13, 2009

On the Tuesday night, I was greeted by a big hello from H- , who was working at Artists 25. My first few drawings ween't very good, but by the time I had reached these two 20-munute poses, I was doing better, I was wrestling a lot with her likeness, with limited success that night.

1st entry for October 11, 2009

This was the weekend of Thanksgiving in Canada.
On Sunday, family events ended up taking precedence over drawing practice. I had been looking forward to drawing Z- when she was working at the TSA, but it coincided with the only chance to see some visiting cousins from Winnipeg.
When all was said and done, I did attend an hour of the morning session. My drawing was not so strong, but I was struck at the time what a confident model Z- has become, and it was nice to see her at work.
These were a 5-minute kneeling and a 15-minute reclining pose.

I like the slightly nebulous quality of the kneeling study. I notice that in classes I teach I have been talking a bit about `open-ended' drawings vs `closed' drawing approaches, and the kneeling study is definitely an open-ended image - many changes or alterations could be done to it without them seeming like intrusions on what is already set down in the drawing. That is useful because most of us do not set every mark in just the right spot on the first try.

A David Hockney pen drawing or a Picasso etching are more `closed' - they succceed because each mark is committed to at the outset, but a false or awkward mark would compromise their clarity, and could not be remved or hidden without spoiling the clean-ness of the piece.

The others from the morning weren't strong enough to warrant documenting.

4th entry for October 8, 2009

These two 15-minute poses closed off the evening.

3rd entry for October 8, 2009

These were 15-minute poses

2nd entry for October 8, 2009

These were 10-minute poses

1st entry for October 8, 2009

On Thursday I went over to the Toronto school of Art to draw, ands found that A- was working that night as well. My time management has been worse than usual lately when it comes to drawing sessions. In a change of pace, I was there at the start of the class, and got to do some gesture sketches.
these were 1-minute poses.