5th Entry for Aug 8, 2011

K-  and L-   did a 10-minute pose,then G-   and J-   sat together, and then K-   came back for a 10-minute reclining pose.  I extra-ecorche-d her figure on the last one, which, as an anatomy nerd, was a lot of fun.

K-  's pose at the top, with her veil evoked images of `Day of the Dead' iconography for me, as well.

4th Entry for Aug 1, 2011

It was beachtime cheesecake after a break and costume change. Funnily enough, that was where the level of my drawing dropped off. One would think that having drawn so many people with no garments, a person in a swimsuit would be a breeze. But the challenge of drawing two people in the 5 minutes - and trying to get two likenesses - was defeating me. These are two more 5-minute studies above, and two 10-minute ones below. there were others, but those studies were just too weak to post.

3rd Entry for Aug 1, 2011

The top four of these are 5-minute studies, with varying degrees of success.  All are done with hard compressed charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of cartridge paper. 

The fourth one down was a challenge issued to everyone to try a `wrong hand' drawing, so it was done only with my left hand.
The character of that is quitedifferent from my right-hand drawings. It may have been co-incidence, or that I was more warmed up. but the 10-minute study that follows it below was more focussed than the preceding ones. I think throwing periodic challenges like that does get one's brain more in gear, which seems to be borne out here.

1st entry for Oct. 31, 2010

 

Sunday morning I came equipped with some big cartridge paper, and an oversize 4B graphite pencil on which I had shaved part of a side away, in the hopes that I could handle it more like Conte. The top page has two 5-minute studies of L-   . Middle are 10-minute studies and the lowest was 15 minutes.
The breadth of shading stroke was better, but the pencil felt bulky and ungainly. The value range was also less on the dark end.
The big sheets are 24 x 36", and the lowest one is about 12 x 15".
Because I was intending to switch over to some small sheets of leftover Japanes paper, I hadd reined in the size of the shorter studies, which took away a bit of the fun of sweeping in marks with a bold flourish.
( I believe too that these images appear a bit better if you click on the photos to get an enlargement.

3rd Entry for Oct 19, 2010

The two upper images are done with HB Conte crayon on 22 x 30" sheets of Maidstone paper. Each was 20 minutes. The head study was first - I wasn't happy with the relative coarseness of the Conte's grain pattern on the more rigid paper - too much white in between the black dots, compared to working on newsprint. I didn't have any more `dusty' chalks that I could work into the surface to cut down the whiteness, so I did what I could with trying to build up a base layer of Conte, upon which I did the reclining pose. I was a little happier with that, but the shift to the slightly smaller paper felt constraining with the Conte in hand.
The night ended with a ten-minute pose, and on that I shifted back to 24 x 36" newsprint. The drawing almost always goes slower on new paper, so the 10-minute poses was too short to try much of anything new.

1st entry for Oct. 19, 2010

On the Tuesday I went over to Artists 25.  A-  was working, and it was the first time I've encountered him. From top to  bottom these are three 2-minute and two 5-minute studies, done in Conte crayon on 24 x 36" sheets of newsprint, my medium of greatest familiarity.
After the Sketchy's session of the previous night, the bigger paper felt really spacious to work on.

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.

2nd entry for July 31, 2009

These images are all in the 15-minute and 20-minute range. As with other occasions drawing M- , I struggle with his likeness. This paerticular night I was feeling at one point that there was a tug-of-war, between my desire to set down an absolute image of him, and his willingness to be so represented. It was like some interior battle of wills, going on no doubt entirely in my head. I didn't quite succeed, but a few studies were okay, just the same.
I was also cognizant of the tendency to want to turn models into `characters' - to create a simplified sense of who they are, and draw that. I was aware of wanting to get deeper - to draw M- honestly, rather than just do `M- drawings'.
It's always interesting how psychological considerations enter into the process of representing someone.

2nd entry for March 3, 2009

The evening took an unanticipated turn when it became apparent that P- had come in to model as well, owing to some crossed wires. Happily, she and H- are well-acquainted with each other, and there were enough people to afford to keep both models on for the night.

Budget considerations make it impracticable to do that often, but it is a really enjoyable challenge drawing 2 people. It helped that H- , who self-identifies as "having no physical boundaries at all" was very at ease with the situation. What could have been an uncomfortable scene got very cozy: H- & P- were quietly chatting to each other as they sat, and we all wrestled with getting twice the forms in place.

I've drawn 2 sitters on other occasions where they were not at ease with each other & had the sense of `two solitudes' sharing a space, conveying an Ingmar Bergman-esque mood. Even though they weren't always fully interacting, there was a good dynamic going, with H- particularily conscious of how her poses were fitting with P- 's.

There were some good dualities going on - lean & full-figure, short & tall, that added to the interplay.

These were 10-minute studies. Trying to set all this down sure kicked up the intensity of my focus in what was looking like a fairly familiar drawing situation.

3rd Entry for January 22, 2009

These were 2-minute poses. The night was especially challenging, I found, trying to get all the support straps in, plus trying to get the foreshortening to work. I was working flat out. I fund if I let my attention wander at all, I would run out of time to set down a crucial hand or leg. As it was, details were being drawn in even as R- was shifting to another position.

2nd Entry for December 14, 2008

These were 5-minute poses. 5 minutes I find is a tough amount of time - too short for much detail, but long enough to want to try to put it in. B- is such a tall, long-limbed person that it is difficult to fit all of him onto the page.