We had to draw with charcoal which I was quite excited about because I've always enjoyed drawing with charcoal before. Although, it turned out to be much harder than I thought it was going to be; we got taught how to hold charcoal properly and I found it pretty difficult and rather odd to begin with! It's very different to how you hold a pencil.
We also have to stand an arm's distance away from the paper so that we can see what we're drawing and have the easel at 45 degrees that we can see our subject. I kept forgetting and getting really close to the paper but I think that will come with practise.
We got given 5 mins for the first few drawings which was a bit alarming as naturally quite a slow drawer and I like things to be precise. But I'm glad to by put out of my comfort zone - hopefully it'll push me to be a better artist!
<< There is my first attempt - started out too big because I didn't begin with the head (oops!).
My second go was better scale-wise - I started with the head and carried on from there so I managed to fit the whole body on this time. Huzzah! However, I didn't get the width right; my pictures a bit too wide and so the head looks too small. I didn't have time to do the feet either (a recurring theme!) >>
He also told us to be aware of the bone structures underneath the flesh and use those as reference points when drawing the body. This will help us not to go too wide.
<< I think my third attempt is definitely starting to look a better although it's a shame I didn't manage to get the complete body in. I was busy concentrating on getting the proportions right that I ran out of time to actually draw!
I found it quite difficult to use the structural reference points because I wasn't sure how the bones (and muscles and what-not) were working together from those perspectives and positions. I've only ever drawn people front on so it was a (good and interesting) challenge to draw from a different angle (if rather difficult!)
In the afternoon we changed models and had a woman to draw. I'm pleased that we got the chance to draw both as women and men are very different from each other to draw. We got longer to draw the woman - 20 mins (which still seemed like hardly any time to me!) We then had a session of quick, three minute poses to sketch in our books in pencil. I thought that I'd be better at this but actually I found it really awkward trying to stand, hold my book, look at the model and draw! I hadn't got my speed in sketching either - was far too slow; didn't even manage to draw half of the model before time was up! To be honest, I'm not very pleased with my day's progress - I'm disappointed with the way my work turned out. I feel like I can do much, much better than this! I found the charcoal quite hard to draw with as the body and face is very detailed and I found it hard to get good detail in. But as a starting point, it's not too bad. I really enjoyed my day and I've learnt a lot. I'm hoping that I improve throughout the weeks because at the moment this is not my strong point. Basically life drawing needs some work!!
Target for next week = work on face and feet and speed of drawing!
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