1st entry for June 17, 2012

A Sunday afternoon of `time trials' and paper testing at the TSA. All three of these are on 24 x 36" sheets of Durotone paper; the top two of L-   with her recently shaved head on the Butcher White paper, and the one of A-  below on their Extra White.
The topmost one is a 1.75-hour study, done with hard compressed charcoal , with some large masses of local value underlaid with smudged-in willow charcoal. I found with extensive smudging the `mottled' character of the papers surface became very evident. The side view of the same pose is a 25-minute study; underdrawn with a loose vine charcoal sketch, and hard compressed charcoal on top.
The lowest one is just hard Nobel charcoal and was about 22 minutes. A-   's face in it went fairly well, but on reflection the pieces of her figure integrate very poorly. In the rush to get a full-figure drawing done, proportions were fishtailing all over like a car on a slippery road. Her head and arm on our left connect, but the torso is way too small, and the arm on our right is a different scale too. To my eyes now, the dissonance of inner proportions makes her head and shoulder look like they are in motion, growing and turning to the right atop her torso. The rendering though, is confident, making the image overall sit just on the wrong side of the line between ordinary awkward and interestingly Surreal.
At the time I was pleased with the immediacy and directness with which it was set down - I felt I was creeping that bit closer to spontaneous drawing I was readily throwing down on newsprint up to a year and a half ago. It's pretty good from the navel down to the bottom of the page, I feel.

2nd entry for June 15, 2012

These are some 15-minute studies, plus a 10-minute one that ended the night.  For the top three I tried a paper I hadn't used before called Durotone Butcher White paper. It has a waxy-smooth, somewhat mottled surface. The top study was done on it with hard Nobel charcoal, while the next two were done with HB Conte crayon. It was the first time in ages I had tried Conte, but I still found it a bit coarse-looking on the more rigid paper.  I had a feeling that either the Durotone Extra White or possibly the Butcher White would be especially good, but some of my initial enthusiasm for the Butcher White paper may be chalked up to `Magic Bullet' syndrome: the feeling that a given new material is THE answer. It takes multiple trials to really see how a paper behaves. The sheets are 24 x 36"

The lower study is Nobel hard charcoal on an 18 x 24" sheet of Canson Recycled Sketch paper, with some light tones added using a Prismacolor black drawing stick, which gave a very fine-grained gray on that paper. It wasn't a wholly successful likeness, but the more fine-grained tonality it adds is interesting to me.

1st entry for June 15, 2012

On the Friday, A-  was working at the TSA.  These are two 5-minute studies above, and 10-minute ones below. All are done with hard compressed charcoal. The 4th study down also has some black litho crayon worked on top of the charcoal as an experiment.
All are on 18 x 24" sheets of either bond or Canson Recycled Sketch paper.

I'm teaching an 8-week beginner-level Life Drawing class that starts next Tuesday, July 3 at the Toronto School of Art.  It runs 6:30 - 9:30 weekly, and covers gesture drawing, contour drawing, proportion, light and shadow, and more. There is still room, but it is filling up...
You can get further info here.

Entry for June 12, 2012

The cutlery was out on the Tuesday night in Revival's basement lounge, where the Keyhole Sessions ended up having their monthly session. They have been working a series of Seven Deadly Sins-themed evenings, and gluttony was the theme.
It was the kind of gluttony that involves cupcakes, champagne, ice cream and headdresses, worn by young women who don't have much amplitude of body, which, given the theme, seems a bit remiss. It was, nevertheless, a good drawing workout.
The basement setting meant that things were crowded for the assembled drawers, but that sort of added a clandestine air to the proceedings, which on reflection suits their mandate. The stage upon which the modelling occurs at these sessions does distance things, literally and psychologically.
The top two studies of A-   in a short chiton and ornate headgear were pinging allusions for me to Caravaggio and Renaissance imagery.  They are a 10-minute study above, and a 15-minute one below, both done on 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper with hard compressed charcoal.
Getting proportion and some degree of characterisation into the 2-figure studies of M-  and J-  was challenging - these were a 10-minute and a 25-minute study, both done with the same charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Drawing paper
The lowest 3-figure study was 45 minutes, and is done with the same hard Nobel charcoal on an 18 x 24" sheet of Maidstone rag paper that had been prepared in advance by working some powdered charcoal into it, mostly around the edges of the sheet. The top-right figure of A-  with cupcake is a little awkward, owing to rushing at the end of the time, and some proportions not quire meshing up, which I didn't have time to properly work out. Drawing multiple figures is a bit of a jigsaw-puzzle proposition: if one element is too large or small, neighboring figures won't line up where they need to, which is the proportion acid test.

3rd entry for June 11, 2012

( I'm teaching an 8-week beginner-level Life Drawing class that starts next Tuesday, July 3 at the Toronto School of Art.  It runs 6:30 - 9:30 weekly, and covers gesture drawing, contour drawing, proportion, light and shadow, and more. There is still room, but it is filling up...
You can get further info here.)
 
These are two 20-minute studies, done with Nobel hard compressed charcoal on 24 x 36" sheets of Durotone Extra White paper. The paper size was slightly unwieldy, but I am fairly happy with the upper study, which was a better than average portrait study, I felt.
After it, the last while went downhill for me, but some drawing days are like that. If one really strong study emerges out of an afternoon working with someone, that's great.
As it was, the experimenting with modelling distance was an interesting experience, and shook me up in a little in good ways.

2nd entry for June 11, 2012

These are, from the top, a couple of 5-minute studies, followed by some 15-minute ones. The 5-minute ones are on 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper, and the longer ones are done with hard compressed charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Drawing paper.
I felt with the shorter studies that I've over-rendered C-   's face. She has a distinctive face, so I was interested in doing that justice, but there is a degree of detail that feels `right' with a short study if the rest of it is more loosely handled.
C-  continued to shift around, anywhere from a couple of metres away to well back in my space. Typically in a drawing session, I feel the `optimum' drawing distance is 4-5 metres from a person; much closer and I cannot fit them easily onto a page, but that does come at the cost of  more intense interpersonal connection, and how much close detail I can see. A person is much more `personal' when they are in closer proximity.

1st entry for June 11, 2012

On the Monday I got together with colleagues at my studio and worked with C-  . She was roaming the (admittedly small) space more than usual, which was what we were experimenting with. These are 1-minute studies, some close, some far. I think they are a little less formulaic than the usual gesture drawings I warm up with.
...and gesture drawing is one important part of what I teach in the 8-week Life Drawing intro class that starts next Tuesday, July 3 at the Toronto School of Art. It runs 6:30 - 9:30 weekly, and covers gesture drawing, contour drawing, proportion, light and shadow, and more. There is still room, but it is filling up...
You can get further info here.