Monday Life Drawing Sessions

graphite on newsprint

© Nicki Ault, 2015

graphite on newsprint

© Nicki Ault, 2015

I am enjoying the Monday night life drawing sessions at Atelier 2302- I will be there this evening. Here are a couple of my not-so-bad efforts from two different Mondays. The first one was a forty minute drawing and the second one was about twenty minutes. I was just starting to figure out the shadow shape when the time was up. 

I have noticed a change in my approach to drawing since I have become a student at the atelier. I think the change is good and demonstrates growth. I actually feel like I see better. I've been trying to construct my drawings with ghosty-bandy lines and I have been thinking about apexes, shadow shapes and alignments which is something I never did before. At least not so deliberately. I went back over the lines of these drawings to darken them up so the camera would see them.

We are a quiet group, the Monday night session. When the model takes a break, the room is quiet. I have such an urge to crack jokes and lighten the mood, but one of the first days when I tried, no-one engaged so I took that as a hint. I've never been the class clown before and I am not sure this is the time or place to try it out!

Feelin' Sketchy Saturday

20 minute sketch

 quick gesture studies (hat)

and 

20 minute sketch

I got an email from my friend Kerry last night asking if I was planning to go to the drop-in drawing session today. To be honest, I likely wouldn't have gone if he didn't email me, but I know he knows that drawing is a bit of a goal of mine so I was feeling accountable! I'm glad I went, but I didn't feel inspired by the model. I left early and went by the studio to contemplate a large canvas I worked on yesterday. It looks promising, but I need to let it dry so I can tweak some things. I hope to show it to you in a few days... and with it will come a announcement.

Life Drawing Session

Cheryl

10 minute pose

vine charcoal on newsprint

Cheryl 2

10 minute pose

pencil on newsprint

It has been raining so much this week you would think it would have to end at some point. Today we were supposed to take part in the community garage/yard sale, but clearly that wasn't going to happen. I woke up and remembered that one of the artists from the studio had invited me to join her other art group for a life drawing session. My guys were just going to be lounging at home this morning, so I scrambled and got myself there for 9:00 (I woke up at 8:10!). I felt very nervous and extremely rusty, but it honestly felt fantastic to have my charcoal out again. I really didn't know what to expect of the set-up, so all I brought was my pad of newsprint and charcoal/graphite. We did some 30 second and one minute poses to start. My gesture skills slowly began to warm up, but are far from where I used to be years ago. The above are 10 minute studies.

Cheryl resting

20 minute pose

graphite on newsprint

Cheryl standing

20 minute pose

graphite on newsprint

Cheryl- portrait sketch

pencil on newsprint

The remaining sketches I am showing you each took about 20 minutes although I think the last one was possibly closer to 30 minutes. I used a basic HB pencil on this one- straight from my son's school supplies, so it is quite light. Sorry for the quality of the images... you can tell they are right out of the sketch pad. Let's just call them authentic!

Apparently this group is trying to meet the last Saturday of every month to do life drawing/painting sessions. I hope to attend again. I really struggled with proportions today and I need to keep up these exercises so I can continue to grow. As always, I was humbled by how much I need to learn. Cheryl was a talented model and gave us beautiful poses for the quick gesture studies at the start of the session. She had very graceful lines to her body and she was so confident!