2nd entry for June 15, 2014

These are a 15-minute study at top, a 20-minute one and a couple of 25-minute ones. The session went well for me and I was quite happy with the last study at botttom. It has a nice, gentle feeling of connection to my mind. I did enjoy working with two people who are close.  The other two wash studies are good studies and more interesting than many,  but there is not quite the clarity of the personality in them that the bottom one has.
The top one is Pitt pen on an 18 x 24" sheet of Strathmore Series 300 paper. The other three are all watercolour graphite pencil and Artgraf water-soluble graphite washes on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Montval watercolour paper.

1st entry for June 15, 2014

I went back to Artisans at Work on the Sunday morning, as a couple, Holly and Andrew, were back working. Once again it was good to have a couple who were so comfortable with each other's bodies, and who could keep still for extended poses.
The top three studies are 3-minute ones. The ones below that are around 10 minutes, and the botttom one is a 15-minute study. For the last two, I used a quick pencil underdrawing, but in the case of the bottom one that led to some preciousness in rendering Holly's head that doesn't work as well. Underdrawing can help with organizing proportion, but can also lead to trying to over-describe details.
Around this time I was halfway through teaching a 6-week costume and clothing class, and I think that shows in the handling of the couch ad its cloth covering.
All these are Pitt calligraphy-point pen on 18 x 24" sheets of paper; the top five are on Canson Recycled Sketch paper, and the bottom one is on Strathmore series 300 paper.

2nd entry for June 1, 2014

The tonal studies here are roughly twenty minutes each, and the line studies are 3 - 4 minutes apiece. The materials are the same as the previous post. I enjoyed working with the two of them, as they had a very good feeling of mutual comfort, and some good poses.

1st entry for June 1, 2014

On the Sunday morning I travelled out to a space I hadn't drawn at before. Called "Artisans at Work", it is an art studio and shop at Woodbine and Danforth. They have begun offering drawing sessions, and I was interested in a 2-person session they had scheduled for the Sunday morning.
The space was reasonably large and decently lit, and the couple, Holly and Andrew had a very nice chemistry with each other, and held poses together well.
The line drawings are all Pitt medium point pen on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper. They are a 3-minute and two 10-minute ones.
The tonal studies are 15 and 20 minutes, done with water-soluble graphite pencil and water-soluble graphite washes on 18 x 24" Canson Montval watercolour paper.

4th Entry for Feb 22, 2011

The upper study of H-  and A-   is a 20-minute one, with 8B graphite on 18 x 24" Japanese paper.

The one below is 25 minutes, with the same materials.
There was a nice rapport between the two of them, and while it verges on cliche, the interplay between A-  's lean-ness and H -   's fuller forms worked well.  Drawing two people together like this is something I really enjoy. It happens very rarely, but when it does, it requires all my focus to keep all the shapes in sync with each other. That worked pretty well at points on this evening.

3rd Entry for Feb 22, 2011

Above is a roughly 10-minute study, with graphite on cartridge paper.  Below was a 20-minute study, also done with graphite, on 18 x 24" Japanese paper.

2nd Entry for Feb 22, 2011

In order from the top, these are two 5-minute studies, then two 10-minute studies of A - and H-  .
Graphically, I like the 2nd one down, where H-  's image is lighter in the background. It was a happy accident - I ran out of time to set her down any more than that.

These are shown in the order they were drawn, and you can see how I got more connected to the drawing as each pose they did progressed.

All of these are 8B graphite on 18 x 24" cartridge paper.

1st entry for Feb 22, 2011

On the Tuesday I got out to Artists 25. Owing to what turned out to be a happy accident, both A-  and H-    had been lined up separately to work,  and both were all right with working together, so we got to draw some duo poses. 
The topmost one is about a minute of drawing, and all of the others below are 2-minute studies, all done with graphite on 18 x 24" cartridge paper.

Entry for April 6, 2010

(A long-winded post follows, but I want to mention first that anyone looking for figure drawing instruction in the Toronto area take note- the TSA's Spring term starts April 19th, and I'll be teaching intro Life Drawing on Saturday mornings, and advanced Life drawing on Wednesday evenings for more details, check here)

On the Tuesday night it was a bit of a change of pace for me.

As has been discussed a ways back in this blog, I am cognizant that eroticism and sexuality are a component of bodily experience. And life drawing in general strives to keep those elements well in the background. But as part of the broader spectrum of how bodies are represented and understood, they play a part.
I have always felt that one of the good things about life drawing is the project of seeing a broader spectrum of beauty, of bodies and of contexts than those we get from more general media. but I also feel that there is room to generate imagery in art that opens the dimension of erotic representation in honest ways.

The Keyhole sessions are a local Toronto project that aims to be a `racier' alternative to standard life drawing. In their promotional material they suggest that the sexual dimension of the modelling is much more explicit, in contrast to "your Grandma's life drawing session". Nothing `stuffy' about their place, they say. Up til now I had only heard about it second hand.

On a tip from Z- I went to check out the Tuesday session there. D- and M- were the models, and both work in the adult film industry. I was curious to see how people who make a living at presenting themselves in a sexual context would be in a life-drawing situation.

I was anticipating a bit more of a boisterous experience than I actually got - the woman hosting the session was very pleasant, and people there were also anything but the trenchcoat-clad heavy breathing crowd of old men one might associate with it as a venture. An even split of men and women, mostly urban, most on the hip/arty side of the equation. The crowd was genial and chatty before, after, and during breaks.
I had a fond historical connection to the space it was held in, as the Toronto School of Art used to hold its life drawing sessions in the same Great Hall space that the Keyhole people now use. (I actually used to monitor a drawing session in the room, back in the late '80's). It is a beautiful building at Queen and Dovercourt that they are in, and it was fun to be back there.

The session is a bit more of an immersive experience than some- lights are lower than many studios, which makes it harder to see nuances of the drawing (but can be a freeing thing, too). There is a playlist of music for the night - club music and things like Madonna's `Erotica' which give it more of an event feel, a little like sketching at a mildly kinky fashion show. Models typically get kitted out in ornamental rope harnesses,which adds to the fetish-y feel. The models that night also had high heels on. (Drawing the women with heels was triggering memories of my teacher, Robert Markle, who frequently depicted burlesque dancers in heels in his work)

As for the posing, people posing for extended periods are people posing. Some of the poses they did together had a bit more of an S & M feel, but apart from that most of the poses taken weren't too far off the beam of a standard drawing session. What made it seem different to me was the contextualisation of costume & music more than anything else. That and facial expression: I'm not accustomed to models holding an open-mouthed, ecstatic look, which I associate more with adult books & movies.

People drawing behaved in essentially the same way as they do in any drawing session. At the post-feminist TSA we discourage people from describing people in `objectifying terms' - i.e we should be talking about models' work, not their figures. (I'm wondering though that nowadays perhaps we are at a place where complimenting someone's looks is not de facto demeaning or a reductive gesture diminishing their other capacities...it's tricky)
Physical appearance was more a subject of discussion that night. Certainly the women modelling fit the mold of preferred age and body types for our society.

The studies here are mostly in the 10-minute to 25-minute range. I enjoyed the challenge of the distracting environment and the patterns the rope created, and fitting two figures proportionately into a single space. But in the end most of the two-figure studies are images of people going through the motions of looking sexy together. For me, there was far more frisson drawing D- and L- together a few months back at the AGO, where there was a real intimacy present (see entries for November 2nd).
The 25-minute pencil study of D- from Tuesday was the sole one that for me had some emotional charge. She was just sitting, no special outfit, but the fact of her looking in my direction, and her expression were the most intense, made moreso in an environment where regarding someone in a more erotic context was more condoned.

If you're interested, you can see more about the Session here at the Keyhole website. They do a thorough job of documenting their events.

4th entry for November 2, 2009

These two 25-minute poses rounded out the morning. The sense of closeness and comfort between D- and L- made the sesssion particularly special. (So close, in fact that one of the instructors who was teaching nearby was interjecting at breaks that "They are a real-life couple" in case anyone needed that piece of information).
It is a pleasure to draw one person's body. To draw two together is more than twice as engaging, especially if there is some emotional connection there. I have drawn two women together a few times, and a few male-female duos. I've yet to come across two men working together, though.

3rd entry for November 2, 2009

These were 15-minute poses. It was a challenge to be setting all the information down that day, but the poses were really nice, and I was finding myself in fairly good form that morning, thankfully.

2nd entry for November 2, 2009

These were a 5-minute pose and two 10-minute poses.

1st Entry for November 2, 2009

I was able to get to the Art Gallery of Ontario's Monday daytime life drawing session again, albeit a little late. I was pleasantly surprised to see that owing to a schedule mixup, both D - and L- were working that day. I do like the challenge of drawing two people. Being a couple themselves, they were especially comfortable working with each other.
These were 2-minute and 5-minute poses.