2nd entry for June 19, 2012

These are 1-minute studies of S-   plus a 3-minute one at the bottom, all done with hard compressed Nobel charcoal on 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper.
His special summer open sessions continue Tuesday nights at OCAD U, room 617, 6 - 10 PM.
They are open to all, $10 for students, or $15 otherwise, and a really good gesture and foreshortening workout (air conditioned, too!).

When someone's posture has all the twists and foreshortened parts of S-  's poses, it can be challenging for more novice life drawers to work out the volumes of the body in space.
I teach a special summer  3-day workshop at the Toronto School of Art July 23-25 called Structural Bodies. It runs 6 hours daily, and focuses on the `perspectival'  aspect of figure drawing - using short and long poses to analyse bodies as a set of 3-d volumes in space (cones, tubes, eggs, blocks,) - and the surrounding space too, at times.
To make the most of this class, you should have a basic grasp of drawing simple volumes in at least rough perspective from imagination (tubes, eggs and blocks in particular).
There is room. and you can contact the school and get more information via their website here.
If you want any other information, drop me a line, and I'll be happy to fill you in.

1st entry for June 19, 2012

On the Tuesday night I went over to S-   's summer drawing session at OCAD U. It too is open to anyone. This time, S-   dispensed with any costume/characterisation and concentrated on very dynamic figure poses. These are 1-minute studies. As a discipline project I tried to make these extra-small,and fit two on the 18 x 24" sheets of bond paper I was using. It was good practice, but tough with such expansive poses.

4th entry for June 18, 2012

Aspects of Z's last outfit reminded me a bit of circus styles as well as goth fashion. For drawers who are interested in the circus side of things, Diane McGrath's "Drawing Room" drawing sessions, with models doing short poses on aerial equipment (hoops, silks, trapeze, etc) is back on on Monday nights. If you're on Facebook, you can look up `The drawing room' page for details.  It's open to anyone. and costs $15 for 2 hrs. The last two of these are on 23 x 34" sheets of Durotone Extra White paper with a bit of vine charcoal dusted on first. Both are done with the hard Nobel charcoal. All in all, it was a good challenging fashion show to draw that Z-  provided.  K's account of the afternoon's experience  can be found here.

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.