LIfe Drawing: Week 1 - Day 3

 40 min charcoal and chalk work

                                           (L) Charcoal - Rubbing back technique    (R)  Charcoal - Sitting pose - quick study

It did help to walk around and see some of the others...... only 3 students had prev. experience in drawing the human figure and outshone the rest, with super results each time........but for the rest of us, it was a new topic ... not done before.

I felt unable to start each drawing, again today.  In some ways it was worse. 
Somehow I stumbled forward and in 3 of my pieces I felt I achieved something .... with strict coaching. (The ones above). 

There were one or two other pieces, where I thought I had got somewhere, (being a beginner in this topic)... only to be told it was all wrong and to rub half of it out :(  What a horrible feeling.... necessary but harsh for a beginner.  Especially under the time limits we worked under and the size, materials and style of drawing. 
The urge not to rub out half of your work, that you felt was the best you had done......to leave it and feel that one had got somewhere,...... was overwhelming. We were pushed so hard.  Yes, we got results, most of us in the end. 

 (Below)  This is after rubbing out half of the image, and redrawing in the last couple of minutes... I agree it was more accurate but losing the models head, did not feel good....

 

(Above)  This was before rubbing out the top half of the body, because it was at the wrong angle :(

Here are some examples of works by famous artists (although they had more time and more experience...)
We were told to look at their shading and try to emulate it...

 This is where I got the scribbly lines from in my one drawing....

 

Even for my best drawing of the day, in the last 2 minutes - I got ...... "Can't you just do one thing right... put the tone in the right place at least!!"  At this stage I think I had tried so hard and done each part of the body about 10 times, correcting, correcting, correcting...it was always wrong...slightly, in some cases but wrong.  This is where I learnt that charcoal is forgiving....I had never felt this way about charcoal before. 

It was the time limits more than anything that limited our results - without that pressure.....one could better draw a face or body, correcting, perfecting (or could/would we...)  ?

Given the spec's, the time limits..... the final instructions to correct what we had achieved - made our results (which go for our assessment) seem pathetic and rushed and unfinished.

I know often that I am pushing myself, considering my injuries, to do these studies.   It seems at times that its not possible to be an artist with what has happened to me.  Yet following my head injury in 2007, and subsequent loss of memory ... drawing and painting (and photography) is almost all that remained with me, for much of the time that passed since than....that natural instinct to want to draw, paint - my own style.

This, being the first time I have ever had the opportunity to study art, makes it so challenging.

I wonder that is unfair, that I have had so many injuries in my life..... and having been told I am not talented in art, why I attempt to do this...   its because it returns to me, that feeling, wanting to draw, paint...working with colour and design...despite everything... it stayed with me.

That does not go to say that I (or anyone) can be talented, or learn to do ....each and every kind of art that there is, within the syllabus.

I felt very strongly at this stage that I should give up, my studies, that I was useless and could not continue.

Yet I feel ........looking back ..... that a handful of pieces over the 3 days, I did manage to get it, even though it did not feel like it at the time.

Its a journey, not just a study of art.


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The tutor that we had today .... was very strict ...unlike our usual tutor who is kind, encourages us with words of wisdom, smiles and laughs.  Not this taskmaster...forcing us to go on, through the darkness ... without a torch.  Do it :/

(Personally I feel our tutors should at least be able to demonstrate and draw an example of what is required themselves.  This is sorely missing.  That total refusal to draw examples of what we should be aiming for.  Yes, we get shown copies of works by great masters, well known artists but surely our tutors should be able to demonstrate?  We, as students, get  many 1/2/5/10 minute drawing tasks - with the odd 40 minute big piece.  Surely our tutors could and should demonstrate themselves what they can achieve in 1-10 minutes - their own bursts of artistic talent.  This type of demonstration would inspire us, lay aside our qualms and fears of inadequacy, show us how they correct and judge their own works within those time-frames... and yet total refusal to do this.  Our regular tutor does show us how to proceed with making marks (hatching, varied line pressure)  on a page, with different mediums............ but still....no drawing of an object, scene, hand, foot, leg, face, angles, poses, human figure.   There should be time for that, its part of the learning, teaching experience.)