Entry for June 29, 2010

The evening of June 29 saw two coinciding events: grad ceremonies at a school I teach a class at, and the final spring session of Diane Mcgrath's Drawing Room. I felt compelled t attend the grad, which was enjoyable to see, and got back into the west end with just enough time to do one 15-minute study of Z- , who I hadn't drawn before.

A grasp of sculptural volumes in space and how to convey them is an underpinning of studies like these.

From July 26 - 28 there is a once-a-year opportunity to spend 3 days focusing in on those sculptural aspects of drawing bodies in space, at a workshop I am teaching at the TSA called "Structural Bodies".

From 9 a.m to 4 p.m on each of those days, medium to long poses will supply the opportunity to analyse the figure as volumes in space, and to interpret that using blocks, tubes, ovoids and such, and through cross-contour marks/cross-sections. The thinking that goes into that is a component of drawing foreshortened poses like the reclining ones of Z- here.

For other examples of the kind of studies we'll be doing, click on the tag below for "structural drawing:. To contact the TSA to register, you can get details and contact info here.

1st entry for October 11, 2009

This was the weekend of Thanksgiving in Canada.
On Sunday, family events ended up taking precedence over drawing practice. I had been looking forward to drawing Z- when she was working at the TSA, but it coincided with the only chance to see some visiting cousins from Winnipeg.
When all was said and done, I did attend an hour of the morning session. My drawing was not so strong, but I was struck at the time what a confident model Z- has become, and it was nice to see her at work.
These were a 5-minute kneeling and a 15-minute reclining pose.

I like the slightly nebulous quality of the kneeling study. I notice that in classes I teach I have been talking a bit about `open-ended' drawings vs `closed' drawing approaches, and the kneeling study is definitely an open-ended image - many changes or alterations could be done to it without them seeming like intrusions on what is already set down in the drawing. That is useful because most of us do not set every mark in just the right spot on the first try.

A David Hockney pen drawing or a Picasso etching are more `closed' - they succceed because each mark is committed to at the outset, but a false or awkward mark would compromise their clarity, and could not be remved or hidden without spoiling the clean-ness of the piece.

The others from the morning weren't strong enough to warrant documenting.