Life Drawing: Week 1 - Day 2

Again, we had a live model (clothed) in the studio. 

Today - it was the huge challenge - for me - drawing the full body!!   What a task - having not done this before.  It's a study that is a study in its own ... 

MY FINAL PIECE

There were many bad learning images leading up to this so it just goes to show, that despite feeling really intimidated by this section, I did learn a lot ...

Here are some of the learning experiences from terrible beginning onward:

Initial first image (charcoal) and then moving on to conti crayon...

 Charcoal - 2 minute studies (below)

 Then using a long twig stick and ink, at arms length:

Personally I think, that starting off with scaled, and measured, printed images and practicing small scale would have helped. But we dove straight in ...at the deep end...without knowing how to swim.

It seemed comparable to being given a couple of pictures of people swimming through the ages and then being thrown in and told to swim.  Most likely drown?

At the start, I never thought I would be capable of achieving what I did.  I was ready to give up before I started.  It seemed too difficult.  I am sure that for everyone there are always those parts of ones studies that feel too difficult....well this was one of mine.

We learnt, first off, that there are approx. 7-8 heads (measurement) in the human body and if you can get this right then you will have managed to draw the human body in proportion.... from top to bottom that is.  The width still needs work...

Easier said than done.  Perhaps it was just me, but all I can say is that drawing the human figure, without previous experience of this, was a very challenging matter... Its all very well to hold up a pencil and measure the head, and the body in this way...  BUT immediately transferring that to paper, and accurately depicting what you are seeing, whilst trying to interpret ....what you just learnt, was almost too much for me.  There seemed no time to absorb the info before we had to apply it.  First attempts where highly embarrassing to say the least, when I did get them down on paper. 

Not to mention that we were not drawing in pencil ...we moved straight to charcoal, conti, indian ink & stick held at arms length etc.  In hindsight... I learnt that charcoal is forgiving, although it does not seem that way at the time.

We had to hold the drawing instruments in a certain way too, like a wand...but no magic emerged...  It felt awkward and humiliating...  BUT it worked in the end.  A difficult journey to say the least.

We moved at a  fast and furious pace too, with no room to recover.  I had difficulty getting the proportions into my head at first and felt like hiding away, unable to magically replicate what I was seeing, onto my page.  On my first attempt, I sort of managed the first 3 (Head, mid chest, navel) - all, wrongly  representing a stick thin person ... and then I could not seem to absorb the remainder of the measurements, with in the time limit.

Working at an easel, on large format paper is a luxury...which I am grateful for...honestly - but its not easy, especially for me (with my prev. injuries etc). 

Prev. injuries, together with the combined new, recent events/injuries - since starting my art studies (all around Sept, Oct) of shingles, trigemeral (?) nerve incident at dentist, impact to my head and face, 2 injuries to my hand etc ...all seemed to weigh me down.  I think I totally lost my confidence on this day of life drawing....  how I managed to stay in the room, I don't know.  I felt shell shocked and occasionally a tear or two, brimmed in my eyes, alternately escaped and rolled forlornly, slowly down my pasty face.

We all got through a such a large amount of drawing, over the week, and it was amazing to see all of our efforts improve... BUT it was incredibly intimidating for me, to the point of feeling like.... I could not attempt these drawings... for the fear of the childlike efforts, I produced.  The urge to rush out the room to avoid attempting this ...  The overwhelming feeling that I could NOT do this.

Having to dive right in and do so many timed exercises, not really knowing where to begin, feeling like each attempt was useless...this section felt impossible to me ... impossible to achieve a good result, and under timed-pressure.

Still, I am pleased to say that at the end of the day, somehow, with strict coaching, I did  manage to achieve a few realistic results.

I was not sure I could post my worst efforts but then again...perhaps it shows how far I came, to achieve my better results.....which was very far indeed.  I honestly don't know how I got through this week, it was really a difficult one for me. 

Next is day 3 of our first week:  Sitting and Lying down at different angles...........  the terror continues