1st entry for November 12, 2009

I got out to the TSA on the Thursday night, where S- was working. These were some of the 1-minute poses she did.

1st entry for November 10, 2009

On the Tuesday night the Drawing room session was cancelled, so I went over to Artists 25. It wasn't an especially good drawing night for me. weak enough that I was suspecting that I might be succumbing to a bit of a cold. The full-figure studies of C- are about 15-minute each, the profile 5 minutes, and the head study about 20 minutes.
In drawing, I like the look of C- as a person - his face shows the traces of his life lived. Most of the studies from that night weren't worth recording or posting.

1st entry for November 6, 2009

On the Friday I went to a panel talk on contemporary drawing practices. I was hoping for more engaging ideas than those which emerged, but it had a couple of interesting moments.
Feeling mildly frustrated at the end, I headed over to the TSA, where Z- was working. There were only two and a half poses left, but drawing my sweetie was a good foil to the lecture experience.

6th entry for November 3, 2009

These two 10-minute poses were at the end of the evening.

This post marks a little bit of a milestone, as it is the 400th post on this blog, since its' inception in early December 2008.

5th entry for November 3, 2009

The evening resumed with B- working on hoop and trapeze. These were all in the 5-minute range.

4th entry for November 3, 2009

These were both 5-minute poses. After that, we took a break & Diane changed equipment.

3rd entry for November 3, 2009

These were all 3-minute poses. Three minutes is an ultra-generous gesture pose: time enough to deal a bit with faces and shading, but too short to get fussy.

2nd entry for November 3, 2009

These were some of B- 's 2-minute poses.

1st entry for November 3, 2009

Tuesday night I was back at Diane Mcgrath's Drawing Room session, where B- was working. If anyone is in the Toronto area, it is an excellent 2-hour workout in the Queen and Roncesvalles area.
These were 1-minute poses.

4th entry for November 2, 2009

These two 25-minute poses rounded out the morning. The sense of closeness and comfort between D- and L- made the sesssion particularly special. (So close, in fact that one of the instructors who was teaching nearby was interjecting at breaks that "They are a real-life couple" in case anyone needed that piece of information).
It is a pleasure to draw one person's body. To draw two together is more than twice as engaging, especially if there is some emotional connection there. I have drawn two women together a few times, and a few male-female duos. I've yet to come across two men working together, though.

3rd entry for November 2, 2009

These were 15-minute poses. It was a challenge to be setting all the information down that day, but the poses were really nice, and I was finding myself in fairly good form that morning, thankfully.

2nd entry for November 2, 2009

These were a 5-minute pose and two 10-minute poses.

1st Entry for November 2, 2009

I was able to get to the Art Gallery of Ontario's Monday daytime life drawing session again, albeit a little late. I was pleasantly surprised to see that owing to a schedule mixup, both D - and L- were working that day. I do like the challenge of drawing two people. Being a couple themselves, they were especially comfortable working with each other.
These were 2-minute and 5-minute poses.

7th Entry for November 1, 2009

After exploring for half the night, I used the last three long poses to focus on drawing P- as sensitively & responsively as possible. These were 15-minute and 20-minute poses that wrapped up the evening.

6th entry for November 1, 2009

These were 10-minute studies as well, continuing to sacrifice figure detail for overall composition. I broke out some General's charcoal for the extra-black panels, as building those up with Conte would have been too time-consuming.

5th entry for November 1, 2009

One of the pluses about a model one knows well is that it can be a licence to experiment. I have, in my mind, suceessfully documented P- 's appearance enough times that it is less urgent to do.
On this night I gave over some time to thinking about overall composition. Usually I give over the whole time to just drawing the person as well as possible. This time I let the body stay loose, and worked on blocking in background shapes as well.
These are two 5-minute and one 10-minute studies.