1st entry for May 10, 2013

By co-incidence, when I went to the Friday night session at the TSA, it was Meredith working. These are  two 5-minute studies and a 10-minute one. all are done with hard Nobel compressed charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper.

4th entry for May 7, 2013

These are 2-minute poses that ended the evening.  It's uncommon to have two-figure drawing situations at all, and more so to have two figures acting out physical confict.
These are done with Sakura Graphic pigment markers on 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper.  

3rd entry for May 7, 2013

These are three 10-minute studies and a 15-minute one at bottom. By the last long pose I was wearing out a bit. These all use the same light gray/pigment pen mix. The costumes had a lot of shiny fabrics - Nic's silver-gray gauntlets and knee-high leggings and Meredith's lighter silver tights and shoes. I was only able to address these a little bit in the longer studies.

(In art classes, clothing and drapery tends to be a minor part of learning to draw people.
So this summer I'm offering a weeklong half-day intensive class at the Avenue Road Arts School that will focus on drawing clothed people. We will look at how clothing behaves and strategies for drawing it. There will be models daily in clothes ranging from everyday to more unusual dress and costume. This is for people with some basic life drawing experience. Details here.)

2nd entry for may 7, 2013

These are some 5-minute paired poses followed by 5-minute single poses with Nic above, and one of Merdith at bottom.
I liked how the bottom image has, for me a retro 1940's-type sci-fi illustration feel. I've always had a soft spot for that imagery.
Trying to keep proportion and body articulation working - and drawing costumes - in this sort of timespan is tricky, and doubly so with two people beside one another.
The black marks are all done with Sakura Graphic pigment pens. To help with the overall aspects I tried using a Copic 30% gray marker to lay down a pale gesture sketch of each figure.  Five minutes is not a lot of time to get 2 figures down, and in essence this meant drawing each figure twice - once in gray, then again in black. So in several cases I did not get all the way through rendering one of the figures. But at least you do get a suggestion of their pose. Something got sacrificed - either specific and sensitive description of each figure, or not detailing one at all. Drawing the black lines and shading areas felt how I imagine inking in a comic would be.  The Sakura pens are not obliging for midtones - and I like my midtones. So it was a good challenge.
The open-endedness of scribbly gesture drawing does make it easier to search out the relative sizes and poses, to make adjustments, and in paired figures to consider the interpersonal rhythms and dynamics.  And the light gray is not too distracting after the fact.
Next time I want to try an even lighter gray for preliminary marks.

1st entry for May 7, 2013

On the Tuesday I went over to catch the Toons on Tap drawing session at the Rhino Bar. It was a retro sci-fi theme that they were playng with that night, with models Nic and Meredith.
These are 2-minute studies, done with a Sakura Graphic pigment pen on 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper. The models each did a few ray-gun poses to start things off - the top three are of Meridith, and the lower four were of Nic.

These short time-span costumed sessions are great drawing practice, and experience in drawing bodies on their own is invaluable in making the most of it - and any situation involving drawing people.
There are three summer opportunities coming up to take short courses that I'll be teaching.
At the TSA there will be an 8-week Tuesday night class and an 8-week Thursday morning course. Both will run July & August. Registration is open, and you can see more details and register online here.
For a shorter more immersive experience, from July 8-12 I'll be teaching a half-day weeklong intensive course at the Avenue Road School of Art. It will run 3 hours each day, form 1:15 - 4:15 Monday-Friday. You can get more details on that course here.)

4th entry for May 5, 2013

(In art classes, clothing and drapery tends to be a minor part of learning to draw people.
So this summer I'm offering a weeklong half-day intensive class at the Avenue Road Arts School that will focus on drawing clothed people. We will look at how clothing behaves and strategies for drawing it. There will be models daily in clothes ranging from everyday to more unusual dress and costume. This is for people with some basic life drawing experience. Details here. )

These are three 5-minute studies above, two 10-minute ones below that and a 15-minute one at bottom.
The top three are done with hard Nobel compressed charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper. The three below are done with the same charcoal on 22 x 30" sheets of Maidstone 90 lb rag paper.

3rd entry for May 5, 2013

These are some 3-minute studies, also done with hard compressed charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper.

2nd entry for May 5, 2013

 These are some 2-minute and 3-minute studies, also done with hard compressed Nobel charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper.

1st entry for May 5, 2005

I didn't get out drawing 'til the next Sunday, when I got back to Diane Mcgrath's studio. Kadri was working that day. These are some 30-second and 1-minute studies, done with hard compressed Nobel charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper.

4th entry for April 28th, 2013

( Apart from certain programs, clothing tends to be an incidental subset of drawing people. So this summer I'm offering a weeklong half-day intensive class at the Avenue Road Arts School that will focus on drawing clothed people. We will look at how clothing behaves and strategies for drawing it. There will be models daily in clothes ranging from everyday to more unusual dress and costume. This is for people with some basic life drawing experience. Details here. )
These are some 5-minute poses that Shannon did with silks, hoop and rope, and at bottom a couple of 10-minute studies and a 15-minute one. The top five ones are all done with hard compressed Nobel  charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper.
The bottom two are done with the same charcoal on 22 x 30" sheets of Maidstone 90 lb. rag paper.