Life drawing

A morning of life drawing this week.  I started out full of trepidation, but on balance, enjoyed the morning and was reminded again that the rubber is as important as the pencil / charcoal/ crayon. Our regular teacher, Abigail Downer, was away this week, and we were therefore taught by a replacement teacher, whose name has shockingly gone from my head.

We started with a rubbed charcoal ground ( messy!) and then drew in the darkest shadows and the lightest lights.  It was a sunny day in the studio, so the contrasts were easy to see.  

After 20 mins of short poses, when the model changed her pose without any notice, captured with pencil in the sketchbook, we then moved on to two 30 minute poses, one seated and one standing.

The foreshortening on the seated pose was really tricky - are the feet really that huge?

Standing should have been simpler after that, but those legs look decidedly wonky and where is the left foot?

More to come next week apparently.

On a related note, Abigail downer’s father is Richard Downer, whose exquisite pen and ink drawings used to adorn the covers of British telephone directories. He has an exhibition on in Highgate Literary and Scientific Institution until 23rd June.

Last day or so to see the most recent PRISM exhibition. This group seems to be moving away from "textile art" to t"extile-inspired art."  I wasn’t so thrilled with it as in previous years,but a gorgeous all white quilt by Niki Chandler rewarded much quiet contemplation.