3rd Entry for June 17, 2018

Anni, slightly longer studies. West End Co-op session, June 17, 2018. Oil-based pencil on paper, 18 x 24

Perhaps it was something to do with the front-on lighting, but I was consistently setting down a sadder expression for Anni than I think I was seeing. Nevertheless, I was much happier with the speed and confidence of the drawing on that morning, compared to three days earlier at the Gladstone Art Bar session. On the Wednesday night, it was so crowded that the only place with any elbow room was sitting on the floor. The room was ludicrously crowded, and even with earplugs, the jazz music was too loud and raucous to be optimal for my drawing.
Even sitting behind a lamp stand, the West End session had so much more of a calm vibe and loads of elbow room

1st entry for Sept. 20, 2015

On the Sunday I went over to the Jam Factory Collective's session. Lina was working as our model, and pianist Tom Richards provided musical accompaniment.
Lina's work was solid as usual. The music reminded me of Jason Kenemy's session (Sun, May 3,) with free ranging (and often fairly loud) piano improv. Richard's musicianship was impressive, but I found that he wouldn't seem to stay with any melodic direction or genre for more than about 40 seconds. It was like musical channel-hopping, morphing from boogie-woogie  to classical to jazz and more, with random bits of sampled sounds thrown in to the mix here and there.
It was a more engaging set than I would have chosen for drawing, and I found the breadth of styles and rhythms was making it hard to bring focus on doing some pure line drawings. The music kept inviting me along different paths then Lina's edges. I was also thinking "a little less forte and a little more piano would be better for me...," and was using some improvised earplugs to bring the volume down. A piano can throw a lot of sound into a mid-size room if it's getting banged on with gusto.
But this is my usual busy music whine. The top two studies here are 2-minute ones, and the next two are 3 minutes each, where I was wrestling with keeping my personal tempo, which was at odds to the music. The next two are 5-minute studies, where I gave up and started scrawling in time to what I was hearing, but in a less pen-destroying tantrum-y snit way than some other occasions.
After that I switched to a pencil gesture with ink lines on top. as that isn't jammed by the music, and that  was much more comfortable. it is a 10-minute study.
These are all Pitt pen on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper.
And for all that I like to point out the challenge some musics throw at me, I have a sense that the getting messy with marks is beneficial in the long run, even if I'm not enjoying it in the moment.

3rd entry for May 3, 2015

The top-most study here was the point at which my efforts to tune out the improv music at the Jam Factory Collective session snapped*. After struggling to make connected lines of Denis' body, I started scrawling and generally attacking the page with pens and a brushpen.
Jason Kenemy's music was shifting and polyrhythmic. I could have spent an intersting hour or two drawing my response to his music with no model. Drawing Denis as I'm accustomed has a different set of slower internal rhythms and would have been fine on its own as well. Trying to do those simultaneously just wasn't working, so I gave over to the music. For the two drawings after that, I was using big sticks of graphite - often held `mitt' style in my fist, to put bold scrawly lines in keeping with the music's tempos.
After that I was able to be more loose and free about the drawing. That I feel is ultimately a good thing. The session was like an art class where an obstacle to working on autopilot is thrown in. The upside is that I started getting a lot less precious about the drawing. So all whining aside, it was worthwhile.

* and I suspect, the most interesting drawn response I've done in a while, which I'm going to think about.

If you want to get a taste of Jason's music, you can hear some excerpts online. From the 2:00 mark on the 3rd "littleBits and piano" piece is where I was getting wound up; the moody electronics were fine - it was the piano atop it that kept jarring. The other three tracks underscore his adept and interesting playing. (just more interesting than I thought I wanted .)  2 hours of solo piano improv is pretty impressive.

The top two are on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper. The lower four are on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson XL Watercolour paper, mostly using a big hexagonal Lyra water-soluble graphite crayon the thickest, least precious drawing tool I had.

2nd entry for May 3, 2015

These are some 5-minute and 10-minute studies. As I tried to slow down and go slower with some more precise lines,  I was finding that Jason's musical performance was becoming a challenge. It was a little improv jazz-y, a little Chopin-ish and a little start/stop high/low volume like some Satie pieces. Jason's musicianship was strong, but listening to the music and drawing was puling my brain in two directions, and his work was a little too varied and had enough shift changes that I couldn't put it into the background. There was some nice industrial-sounding loops he was using, which I personally liked, but then surprise piano flourishes  would pierce their steady rhythms.

Drawing can be a kind of dance, and when dancing I do tend to tap out the beat of music, and his rhythms were not in sync with the movements I was trying to make on the page, which was slowing things down and becoming frustrating. I was respecting that Jason was looking out to the room and responding to his environment. Internally, I felt my drawing was getting weaker and less connected.
I found I was being reminded of the piano solo in Bowie's "Aladdin Sane" now and then.

These are all Pitt pen and ink washes on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper.

3rd entry for June 3, 2014

It's my experience that the first 15-20 minutes of any drawing session are by and large weak drawings, as I find my way into a drawing `groove'. If you look back at previous aerial sessions, usually by the time I get to 3-minute studies at Diane's session I'm able to get a lot of information down, and body forms are getting better articulated. That wasn't going so well on this occasion, partly owing to competing sonic sources (a clicking ceiling fan and a funk playlist at different tempos.)
The first three are 3-minute studies on different Canson papers. I felt the drawing was getting worse, and my project of trying to let go of distracting sounds was failing. (After all, drawing many times involves less than ideal situations, so the more flexible I am, ideally the better.)  I did something I rarely do, totally scratched out a drawing in frustration. Generally, I accept that a fair percentage of what I do won't come together, though that doesn't mean it isn't worth always trying for. Having broken the nib on my felt liner pen, I switched to a pencil.
Interestingly, the middle study is also 3 minutes, but with pencil it was much easier and more intuitive to do, as I could include lots of gestural marks, and so there's a much better-articulated body, done more fast and free. Drawing in pure line with a pen, all that has to be clear intuitively, which is much more focus-demanding for me (and therefore hard-core focus exercise).
The bottom two are a medium-point Pitt pen and water-soluble graphite washes on 18 x 24" Canson XL mixed media paper. The fan went off at the mid-class break, and the drawing was getting easier and more effective as I got unwound.
I like things about how the bottom image is only partly shaded. It's due to time constraints, but has a freshness because of that.

2nd entry for June 3, 2014

These are a couple of 1-minute studies at top, some 2-minute ones in the middle and a couple of 3-minute studies at the bottom. All on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper using various Pitt pens.
Beyond observational clarity, there is a big psychological element to drawing fast and clearly. Using a pen with no underdrawing means being very much at one with the drawing instrument, not over-thinking the process, and to an extent knowing where and how long a line or mark needs to be before and during making it, which in a very short  timespan means a lot of focus.
On that Tuesday I was finding that more challenging owing to noise conflicts. A ceiling fan making a rhythmic rising/falling clicking sound at the same time as a disco-tastic funk playlist was going, which amounted to two competing musics playing at once.
I can't not listen to music playing, but in the best cases I can mesh my mark-making with the tempo of the  music to a happy degree. (when that works with livelier music, like at the Dr. Sketchy's sessions, it's a lot of fun. But overall that's why I like drone-based ambient music for drawing- almost any tempo mark-making can happen along with it).  I was trying my best to be zen and let go of the surrounding sounds (Which is why I'm fine with no music while drawing - no tempo, but also no distraction, and I can play/not play what suits me in my mind instead.) But trying to work with and not pay too much attention to the funk while trying to not hear the clicking fan all meant working slower or getting sloppy, which was taxing and frustrating.
Emily's work was excellent, but the studies were more uneven, especially where likeness and proportion were concerned. The second-last one here did work very well, though.

1st entry for May 23, 2014

On the Friday night before a very therapeutic trip to Montreal for the weekend with my sweetie, I went over to Round Venue for some drawing time.  Round has become host for a few ongoing drawing events, and once in a while they mount a `mash-up' of all of them: Dr Sketchy's meets Toons on Tap meets Reverie.

The mash-up night is arguably one of the more radical departures from the standard life-drawing session paradigm. There were three simultaneous sets of models, aerialists, burlesquers and alt-models each posing in different areas. Swivelling in one's chosen seat led to different people to draw all the time. There was no emcee, and pose lengths seemed about 5 minutes to 10 (except for the Reverie aerialists, who usually seem mostly to be on the move,) but no one was providing info. It was an immersive environment, and you just drew.
The immersive format had its pros an cons. One of my personal beefs with the resurrected Sketchy's is slightly overlong pauses and emcees that interrupt the flow of drawing, but that's a minor thing. That and the emcees' tendency to contextualise the evening with `saucy' burlesque patter, which always feels like it is aimed at my inner 12-year-old.  At the Friday event that wasn't happening, and I could get more into my own personal headspace.
Severin Stargher was one of the alt models that night, and these are some however-long-they-were studies with pencil, Pitt pens and Pentel Brushpen on 12 x 18" sheets of Canson Recycled Sketch paper, except for the bottom one, which is on a 17 x 17" sheet of the same paper. I was liking the all-black formal wear, but with ink it does introduce a challenge, just how much shade to use. I stayed on the linear side, though the brushpen, while less cooperative on fine details, strikes something of a balance.

4th entry for July 25, 2013

These are a 15-minute and a  20-minute study,  and what worked out to a 25-minute one at bottom. The top one is on 18 x 24 Canson Recycled Sketch paper and the lower two are on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Mixed Media paper. All are done with a range of Copic warm gray markers. I reworked the top two later, adding background elements and trying to subtly add 10% or so of additional head size, as the head/body ratio was noticeably off. I lost some freshness and immediacy on Zia's face, but they work better overall.
While I was working that night I was being fussy about music again - at least internally. There was a laptop playing some bop-ish jazz music and funk, and some of it was not working with my own rhythms. Music is so hit-and-miss for me that way. If I can synch my rhythm of mark-making to it, it's great; if not it jams up how I'm moving, distracts me and robs focus. That night I found that a lot of what I was hearing got into that latter territory. Each time a jazz outfit would settle into a nice groove, some musician would interject with an attention-getting note or solo. I'd love that live, but it wasn't working in the drawing session.
Funnily, in the Dr Sketchy's, Toons on Tap or Keyhole Sessions where music was loud and a planned part of the package, I rolled with it much easier. But that was mostly club-type music, most of which I am familiar with and tends to have less dissonance.
Maybe it's just some jazz. Maybe it's more alcohol-friendly music and I work best in a caffeinated state. I feel it's there because someone felt it ought to be, some traditional accoutrement rather than for any currently valid reason. In life drawing, my musical pretensions lean more to Eno, Enya and Baroque music than arty jazz, - just as cliched in my own way.
Silence is often best for me when life drawing - internally I've got enough to keep on top of in very short spans of time, plus keeping ego (good and bad) at bay, without an added layer of sound to process, and I'm not very good at ignoring it if it's there.

The Articulations space was very nice to work in and well worth visiting.  They happen every two weeks, and aim to get an equal mix of male/female models, which is good, and uncommon these days. The people drawing were nice, too. Most of them were ready to pack up early, so I got a bonus 10 minutes of the last pose in in quiet communing with Zia, which I enjoyed a lot (after silencing the laptop). Zia's work was really good, as always.
We learned after that the studio is in a former basement barber shop, and is just adjacent to a former funeral home's embalming room. Now that would have been a wonderfully macabre ambience to work in. Fire up the Gregorian chants, please!
 

3rd entry for July 10, 2013

These are three 10-minute studies, and the final one was around 15 minutes with some extra time after Amanda finished for background marks.
These are all done with a range of warm gray Copic markers. The top is on 18 x 24" Canson Recycled Sketch paper, and the lower three are on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Mixed Media paper.
I was liking the music better this week at the Art Bar. Walt was playing some Van Morrison that was nice, and some easier-going jazz. Towards the end though, a CD jazz sampler he was playing shifted over into more challenging stuff, and that got to be distracting. In particular, a 10-minute excerpt from the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet's Free Jazz was tough for me. When music plays, I tend to move in time to something in the music, and this composition is jumping in so many directions that I couldn't find one to latch onto. That I find slows me down as I have to focus on my moving in spite of the ambient sounds. Also,  I'm suspecting hearing loss in our host, as the volume kept creeping uncomfortably loud, which was grating as well. That was aided by some impromptu earplugs.
Don't get me wrong - the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet are virtuoso musicians, and they created a rich, complex carpet of rhythm and melody.  But I like my drawing music absent, familiar or more insipid, as then it is easier to incorporate or ignore.
Owing to a CD repeat, we ended up getting treated to the Free jazz excerpt twice. I was curious as to what I would have produced if I had surrendered myself to the music, but wasn't willing to relinquish my control on this particular evening. The staccato music was good for hair shading in the last one.
But one doesn't go to the Art bar session for a contemplative drawing space. One goes for beer, lively music and some drawing. It's good the city has the mix of different environments. And the drawers are nice. Every Wednesday night, 8 - 10 at the Gladstone hotel, open to all, $10.

4th entry for March 19, 2009

More 2-minute studies. While doing these I continued wrestling with the music, but was getting adjusted. Also, the music shifted from more varied tempos to more steady latin & hip-hop rhythms, which was helping.