3rd Entry for July 7, 2009

All three of these were 15-minute poses, and they closed off the evening. I was trying to be conscious of putting more heart - more depth of connection - into the drawing. Results varied. The leg in the sitting pose facing away from me lacks a shadow, and seems to be floating awkward and unplanted in space. Same with the outstretched leg in G- 's reclining pose. I rushed through it and it seems stiff and disconnected to the space. She looked far more comfortable than that.

I'm sure any of you readers in Toronto on the 20th would have much better results if you attended her modelling fundraiser that day.

2nd Entry for June 7th, 2009

These were 10-minute poses. G- manifests a strong presence when she is modelling My drawing was a little rusty and rocky that night, but I was enjoying the challenge. And the rustiness was balanced by the enjoyment factor of being there and working.

G- will be modelling as a fundraiser on June 20th, so Toronto-area people should consider going. $10 for 4 hours of drawing, and a very good cause.

1st entry for June 7, 2009

On Sunday I went to the TSA, where G- was working. These were 1 minute, 2 minutes and a 5-minute crouching pose. G- let us kow when she took a rest that she is hosting a fundraiser on Saturday, June 20th, at the Luc Sculpture Studio. She is an actress who is raising funds for her upcoming show "I Will Always Be There to Kill You".
She is an excellent model, so it is an event worth attending - click this link for more details.

2nd entry for June 5, 2009

This was a 15-minute pose. That was the extent of the drawing that transpired that night.

1st entry for June 5th, 2009

There were more compelling things to do than life drawing on Thursday night - it was the cast & crew screening of "The Spine", which is a new animated film by Chris Landreth. Some ink drawings of mine (the `Handguy' series, from my "Unique Journal" drawing collection) were the starting point of one of his character designs. It is a remarkable and troubling work - what you might expect if Tolstoi or Chekhov and Dali had collaborated in CG animation.

On Friday, family stuff tied up my early evening, but I did arrive in time for the last hour of the Friday drawing session. D- was working, and this is one of the
15-minute poses she took. There was also a head study that was too awkward. The standing pose worked out better, but I have reduced her head in Photoshop about 10% from the original, owing to an obvious scale jump in the drawing from head to body.
A good argument for stepping back regularily from a drawing in process, to correct these irregularities in mid-process.

Entry for June 2, 2009

On Tuesday I gave Artists 25 a pass and went along with Z- to check out the bi-weekly Circus Jam in Kensington's Bellvue Park (home of the Al Waxman statue). Dozens of people were out and the atmosphere after dark was festive - dance music was playing, and dozens of people were spinning hoops, practising juggling and other tricks, and giving one another pointers. As night descended, people performed routines with fire - fire fans, fire poi, fire staffs and flaming balls on lengths of rope.
I thought it would be a good opportunity to do some gesture sketching, and it was.

But the 30-second poses at Diane's Drawing Room were a cakewalk compared to these performers dancing through their routines. I filled a few pages with scratchy memory gesture sketches done with a ballpoint pen. It was fun at first, but got frustrating as the ambient light died out. Still a long way to go to get to Toulouse-Lautrec territory, that's for sure!

3rd entry for May 31, 2009

This was a 15-minute pose as well. C- 's face, coupled with the lighting, reminded me of some 18th-century French painting, or academic subject.