Sunday, November 29, 2009

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.

Friday, November 27, 2009

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.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

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.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

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.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

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.

Monday, November 23, 2009

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.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

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.

Friday, November 20, 2009

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.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

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.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

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.