Life Drawing 2

Finally we were able to get a session in for drawing from a nude model. It was rather difficult to get used to considering this was my first time drawing from the nude, but I eventually got into the flow, though I do see that I need a lot more practice.

This was the first piece I did from life and, to be blunt, it isn't very flattering. I struggled at getting the angles of the legs right, so eventually I left them off. The torso is probably the least bad area of the whole thing but I felt I could have done a whole lot better here. Though, for my first time it was a lot better than expected, but I know I have a lot of room to improve.

We then moved on to quick sketches, at 5 minutes (Row 1), then 3 minutes(Row 2). At first, I struggled to make sure that everything fit in the small space that I was working in, meaning that in some images, the top of the head was cut off or the bottom of the legs were omitted. Despite this, I felt like I was getting the hang of drawing quick and getting the overall gesture down before the time ran out.

The next two are done at 2 minutes per piece (Row 1) and 1 minute per piece (Row 2). As the time grew shorter I ended up miscalculating on the first piece, which meant I often ended up with at least one unfinished piece. This gave me a feel for the next three, however, and I eventually ended up getting far enough that I could draw the basic gesture of the human body in just one minute. Though I do know I need to practice more, this is good progress and I feel a lot more confident now than I did before.

We were then given the rest of the session to draw an accurate representation of what we had in front of us. The tutor showed us measures to make sure the angle on certain body parts was correct, which was using your pencil to lay across the edge of the body and transfer it to the paper. He also advised us on using the head and body parts to measure into other body parts to make sure that it was proportionate. I was surprised that this had never occurred to me before, but I was going to make sure to use it in every life drawing afterwards. Considering it was my first time using these techniques I was a little shaky, but I think it helped make my work more accurate in the end.

We also had another life drawing session today, but this time we were drawing costumed characters. This time the model was lying down on the ground so I had a lot of foreshortening to contend with, but I made sure to do a lot of measuring out so that the proportions would look correct. I am seriously impressed at the quality of work that I came out with, and I did not expect to get the foreshortening down so easily. Though there was another model to draw, I only had enough time to focus on one but I think it really paid off, as I am actually happy with this piece.