3rd entry for June 18, 2012

After a change into a more fetish-y ensemble, Z- kept going with a couple more 3-minute poses and a couple of 15-minute ones. These are the same paper/charcoal combination. Apart from Z-   's glasses looking a little too much like goggles in one, I was happy with these studies.

2nd entry for June 18

These are a 5-minute study above, two 10-minute ones and a 20-minute one below. All are done with Nobel hard compressed charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of Canson Drawing paper. It's funny, in a way, that these images, where Z-  has a fair amount of clothing on, read as far racier to me than many of the fully undressed figure studies on this blog.

1st entry for June 18

On the Monday Z-  came and worked for me and a couple of colleagues. We were working with clothing and characterization. These were 2-minute and 5-minute studies on 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper for the top two, and Canson Drawing paper for the lower two.  It was also the first time I'd drawn Z-    since she her hair has been more shorn.

Kimberley, who was guest-drawing that day has a show of drawings of Burlesque artists in her distinctive style opening today (July 5) at Come As You Are on Queen St. W, just west of Spadina. There will be home-baked treats, I gather. You can get get more details here.

2nd entry for June 17, 2012

I returned for part of the evening, where I found N-   was the model,  someone I hadn't drawn before.  These are a 1-minute study above, and three 20-minute studies. The gesture study is done with hard Nobel charcoal on an 18 x 24" sheet of bond paper.
The three longer studies are on 23 x 34" sheets of Durotone. The topmost one is on the Butcher White paper, while the lowest two are on their Extra White paper.  All of these are also done with hard Nobel charcoal.
A brief note on sourcing the materials I'm exploring. The Nobel charcoal is stocked at Deserres. Durotone paper is available from Aboveground Art Supplies, while the Maidstone paper I've been trying is from Woolfitt's art store. All of these are located in Toronto.

... I had a good start to the Summer term intro life drawing class on Tuesday night (July 3) There is still room in it for 2 or 3 more students, so anyone who would like 7 weeks of life drawing basics should contact the TSA. Details about the class are here.

People with a basic comfort level in figure drawing and some knowledge of perspective basics should check out the 3-day "Structural Bodies" workshop I'm offering July 23-25. This course gets people to analyse people specifically in terms of more basic geometric volumes (tubes, cones, spheres & blocks), and to relate those to perspective basics. If you feel your figure drawings are lacking in a sense of volume, or you find foreshortening challenging, this is a really good place to work on those aspects of figure drawing. You can get details about that course here.

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.