4th Entry for Oct. 14, 2010

After a set of 1-minute poses (only one study of which is worth posting,) we settled into some 15-minute poses for the balance of that night.  I was srtuck by the play of light in the surrounding space in the final pose, so I consciously left a lot of P-    's figure open, and set in some of the background.
Generally, I leave the studio space undrawn, for two reasons. One being time constraint. The other is that I don't find it a particullarly resonant space visually. I love the feeling, the ambience of drawing studios, but the TSA space itself is cluttered and arbitrary in ways I haven't felt like trying to integrate. I don't feel it adds to the body I am representing.

But that does beg the question of what ambience would...

3rd Entry for Oct 14, 2010

These are some 10-minute studies.

2nd Entry for Oct. 14, 2010

These are a couple of further 1-minute studies I liked, and a 5-minute one.

1st entry for Oct. 14, 2010

On the Thursday, P-   was working. These are 1-minute studies.

5th Entry for Oct. 10, 2010

These were 15-minute and 20-minute poses. With the extended time available, I focussed more on trying to get the look of G-  's face.

4th Entry for Oct. 10, 2010

These are 10-minute studies.

This is totally off-topic of drawing, but I'm busting with pride over my illustrious dad making a bit of news. One of the influential theatres that he helped found, the Manitoba Theatre Centre, has been assigned a special honour. You can get all the details here.

3rd Entry for Oct 10, 2010

I came back in the evening, and found G-   working. Theses are two 1-minute studies and a 10-minute one below.

2nd Entry for Oct. 10, 2010

 

These are some 15-minute studies, which finished the morning for me.

1st entry for Oct. 10, 2010

For such a distinctive date, 10/10/10 was not an especially eventful day. It was Thanksgiving weekend, and I rose early to do some drawing on the Sunday.  A-   was  at the TSA, and these are some 5-minute studies.

2nd Entry for Oct. 8, 2010

These are 15-minute studies, which finished the evening for me.

1st entry for Oct. 8, 2010

On the Friday, B-   was working over at the TSA.  These are some 10-minute studies.

5th entry for Oct 7, 2010

These are two 20-minute studies that ended the evening's drawing. The last one was, in my estimation a fairly good likeness of D- . All in all, it was a fairly good drawing night.
D-   's good work and presence was an important factor, plus I was no longer at all preoccupied with the upcoming Nuit Blanche event, which probably freed up some psychic processing space.

4th Entry for Oct. 7, 2010

After a break, we continued with some more 1-minute studies and a couple of 15-minute ones. The drawing went well in these, and in all likelihood the challenge of working in an unfamiliar scale helped with that, by getting more of my brain in gear.

One of the attendant risks of doing something a lot repeatedly is that it becomes a rote process, and loses its freshness. But at some point it's easy to get invested in something that works, and to settle for the payout that repeating that in a known way will likely assure, rather than take the chance of spoiling things.

While I am very aware of that, I have to admit to wanting a certain comfort level, a certain security of results as a way to maintain confidence. If I get to a point of satisfying that confidence (which usually takes a fairly heavy saturation of working within my comfort zone) then I start wanting to mix things up more.

though ironically, it is by taking chances that I suspect even the baseline work gets richer.

3rd Entry for Oct 7, 2010

These are all 10-minute studies.

The head study was a little unusual.  I start almost any drawing of a person with their head, and add as much more of their body as the time remaining permits, once I'm satisfied with the head. Accordingly, I've settled into a small scale to draw the heads, to allow room for a full figure. I am aware, though, that more often than not, it takes most of at least 10 minutes for me to get the information down about a face. So rather than work at a cramped scale, this head filled about half of a 24  x 36 sheet of newsprint. The proportions went a bit out of whack, but it has some okay bits.

Predictable results can ensue from keeping all the terms of working consistent (size, workplace, materials, etc), and can allow one to push to ever-deeper subtle incremental improvements.  But it's always a good challenge to switch around scales and materials, to keep freshest and most versatile.

2nd Entry for Oct. 7, 2010

These are 5-minute studies.

1st entry for Oct. 7, 2010

On the thursday, D-  was working, and I arrived on time (a sad rarity...).  These were some of the first set of 1-minute poses that she took.