Hola! Still working with a lot of extra time so today I decided to try an online life drawing class! Very exciting :) I have done bits and bobs with life drawing before but not recently so it was nice for me to be able to try it out again.
The class started out with 2 minute poses. At this point I was just trying to remember how to hold a pencil to be honest. Initially I felt intimidated by the process and I had no idea where to start but the shorter time limits forced me to just draw without thinking which I found really useful. I think I work better under stressful time limits sometimes, who knows? I ended up with a couple rather blocky figures but was a good start.
Next we moved onto 5 minute poses, upping the ante. Having slightly more time allowed me to think more about what I was actually doing. I was able to draw initial lines and the go back and decide which lines I wanted to make permanent. I also had more time to shade. I was quite suprised how much of the figure I was able to get down in just 5 minutes. As you can see one thing I did struggle with was fitting the whole figure on the page. I had to do a little bit of improvisation using multiple sheets of paper and some masking time but what can I say, I really wanted to include his foot in the drawing.
Through the 5 minute poses I found myself looking more closely at the different parts of the figure and how they connected with one and other. Normally this looking is something I struggle with and I would end up just making up big parts of my images, but this time I really tired to focus on looking and almost following along the different lines of the body. I think this helped me to create more readable images and it was also nice for me to be able to concentrate. It ended up being quite therapeutic.
Then the 15 minute pose rolled around. Initially I worried that having more time was going to make it harder for me as I thought I was going to end up overthinking and creating a cluttered image, BUT I actually enjoying the extra time. I think this was my favourite pose the model did, I liked how it gave off an air of confidence. For this image I focused on the tones and contrast. It was important for me to try and record the different shapes of the shadows. I defiantly still need to work on drawing hands and feet but I am quite proud of this one. I really like his curly hair and expression. Very posh!
Finally, the big one, 25 minutes! When I saw the model lay down on the table I almost decided to give up because I thought there was no way I would be able to draw that. But I'm so glad I did it. I think my confidence was built up significantly through completing the other drawings and so I decided just try it and see what happened. Again I was focused on the contrast and shadows. To make it all feel less intimidating I tried to split the body up into shapes, this was really useful to me. Because I had extra time I also decided to include some of the background in my drawing. This was something I used to really enjoy doing when I had previously done life drawing in my A-Levels. I enjoyed putting the figure into a context. By doing this I also feel I was able to add more weight to the drawing using shadows. This one is a bit wonky and his face defiantly didn't look like that but its not bad going. I really like all of the different marks that you can find throughout the image.
Overall I am so glad I decided to join in the life drawing class. I found it so enjoyable and I also think it significantly helped me to increase my confidence in my drawing skills. It was so interesting for me to see what I could produce in limited time using just a HB pencil. Life drawing is defiantly something I think I was to try and do more of. It was a lovely way to spend an evening :)
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