I've been invited to teach a series of life drawing sessions at the local Uni again starting this week. I enjoyed myself last time, so I've been looking forward to it. It's all 1st yr degree students but, as it's a Graphic Design course, there are generally one or two who have never done life drawing before.
The plan is a little different from last year: instead of more traditional observational techniques, we are concentrating largely on getting the underpinning right - determining keys structural features, like the angle of the backbone and the hip line, drawing straight lines to represent the angle across the shoulders and the line through the knees. I had a couple of bamboo canes to hold up against Gerald, the model, to help students to see the angles.
They spent the first half of the session effectively drawing stick men, but very accurately. It was only once they'd got the hang of that, they were allowed to flesh him out. Their last couple of drawings were much stronger for the structural preparation.
Tiring though - I was on my feet from 9.30 through to 1.30, without a break, and was gagging for a cup of tea by the end.
All this reminds me that I haven't done any life drawing for months: these are old ones. They would both have been fairly long poses (I notice the bottom one says 1.5hrs in the corner). You can see more of my previous efforts on Flickr. And don't forget: all my sketchbooks are available to view here.
4 comments:
Fabulous sketches!
Brings back memories - great work. All we did for O level back when, was draw each other (clothed) and my art teacher always said if you could draw the human figure you could draw anything, (but I think is was also an easy lesson).I have done a few life classes since then and it is always a meditative exercise as well as a drawing one - a lot of brainwork is required.
I don't think there is anything where I concentrate harder - I like the fact that total focus is needed because, as you say Jill, it's almost a meditation.
stunning drawings.
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