6th entry for Apr. 24, 2012

These are a 10-minute and a 15-minute pose that ended the evening with S-  .  The 10-minute one is done with a hard Nobel charcoal stick on 24 x 36" Durotone Extra White, and the longer study is on a 22 x 30" sheet of Maidstone rag paper with the same material.
The lower one was extensively reworked texturally afterwards, with more charcoal, a blending stomp, eraser and paper towel. It's not a perfect image, but it is quite striking, and does situate S-- into more of a definite, if ambiguous, space.
Somewhere between these two images would I believe be the ideal degree of tonal/background development for my present tastes.

5th entry for Apr. 24, 2012

After a break, the apparatus was switched up for silks, and S-  kept going with 5-minute poses. These studies are all done with hard compressed Nobel charcoal on 24 x 36" sheets of Durotone Extra-white paper.

Short poses like these are an excellent challenge, and in some ways an ultimate test of figure drawing capability. They don't allow for any revisitation of the pose with the person modelling, or time to revise proportions or such. There is not much time to investigate the relationship between figure and its environment, either.
The extended poses of next week's "Body in Context" intensive are set up especially to investigate that side of figure drawing (or painting, for that matter). It runs Monday - Friday May 14-18 at the Toronto School of Art, and there is still room for a couple of people, with lots of room to spread out or try working from a couple of angles.
The TSA's website for further info is here.

4th entry for Apr. 24, 2012

These are three 5-minute studies, all done with hard Nobel compressed charcoal sticks on 24 x 36" sheets of Durotone paper.

3rd entry for Apr 24, 2012

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

2nd entry for Apr. 24

These are some more 1-minute and 2-minute studies, done with hard compressed charcoal on bond paper and Canson Recycled Sketch paper.

I enjoy drawing images of human bodies, and one of the things that I like about working at the Drawing Room sessions is that the aerial apparatus creates a context in which a person's form is a logical spectacle. (And I'm moved by the athleticism entailed, too.)  Drawing people through regular drawing sessions tends to downplay any sense of specific or logical context.

The week after next (May 14-18),  I'm teaching a class where we will use very long poses having clothed and undressed models situated in settings that will use sets and props to situate people into different settings - symbolic, social, narrative and more. It's a great opportunity to immerse yourself in some of the content possibilities of figurative imagery for five solid days.
It's called "Bodies in Context"; there's still space, and you can get details at the TSA website.

1st entry for Apr 24, 2012

The Tuesday night was the last Drawing Room session 'til mid-June, and S-   was back working. These are 1-minute studies, done with hard compressed charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper.

5th entry for Apr. 23, 2012

For the final portion of the time we had, we experimented with horse head mask that Beth (one of the drawers) had made.
M-  's figure - and his body language - transformed and were transformed by the mask.
These are all on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Sketch paper, done with hard compressed charcoal. The top three are 3-minute studies, and the lowest one was a 15-minute sitting.