The cutlery was out on the Tuesday night in Revival's basement lounge, where the Keyhole Sessions ended up having their monthly session. They have been working a series of Seven Deadly Sins-themed evenings, and gluttony was the theme.
It was the kind of gluttony that involves cupcakes, champagne, ice cream and headdresses, worn by young women who don't have much amplitude of body, which, given the theme, seems a bit remiss. It was, nevertheless, a good drawing workout.
The basement setting meant that things were crowded for the assembled drawers, but that sort of added a clandestine air to the proceedings, which on reflection suits their mandate. The stage upon which the modelling occurs at these sessions does distance things, literally and psychologically.
The top two studies of A- in a short chiton and ornate headgear were pinging allusions for me to Caravaggio and Renaissance imagery. They are a 10-minute study above, and a 15-minute one below, both done on 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper with hard compressed charcoal.
Getting proportion and some degree of characterisation into the 2-figure studies of M- and J- was challenging - these were a 10-minute and a 25-minute study, both done with the same charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Drawing paper
The lowest 3-figure study was 45 minutes, and is done with the same hard Nobel charcoal on an 18 x 24" sheet of Maidstone rag paper that had been prepared in advance by working some powdered charcoal into it, mostly around the edges of the sheet. The top-right figure of A- with cupcake is a little awkward, owing to rushing at the end of the time, and some proportions not quire meshing up, which I didn't have time to properly work out. Drawing multiple figures is a bit of a jigsaw-puzzle proposition: if one element is too large or small, neighboring figures won't line up where they need to, which is the proportion acid test.
No comments:
Post a Comment