Piles o’ figure drawings

Oh, I love me this figure drawing. I just went to my last session in San Miguel, but San Francisco offers plenty of opportunities (albeit several dollars more per session). I need to find a session that includes a couple of really long poses. The longest we did here were 15-16 minutes. It was frustrating, but forced me to work faster, which is a discipline of its own. I also realize, looking at the drawings, that I unconsciously compensated for the brief time by focusing on one thing in one drawing, one in another. So some of these have the gesture just right but I didn’t do anything on the hands and feet; some have a lot of shading in one area, a limb completely ignored elsewhere; etc. Still, I look forward to some 45- or 90-minute poses so that I can really get into more detail and not have “not enough time” as an excuse.

It’s good to see these all in chronological order–I realize I really am learning something. It’s reassuring, because at the beginning of each session I feel all thumbs and it takes me several drawings before I can get a gesture down on paper to any kind of satisfaction. They are very short poses, of course, but the source of the problem is not that I only have two minutes, it’s that I need to get my hands and eyes and brain all into drawing mode afresh. Well, right, that’s why life-drawing sessions always start with these warmups–because centuries of art students have had the same challenge, and their wise teachers have figured out that making them do long, “supposed-to-be”-more-polished drawings when they aren’t warmed up is just going to frustrate them.

Here are some of my favorites from each session. You can see larger versions by clicking on the images.

: 7/20. Something exciting happened when I paid attention to the sharp shadows the light threw: a more varied, expressive outer line.

: 7/20. Oh how I struggled with that spine, and still couldn’t get its shadow right (I never can). But I like the drawing overall.

: 7/20. Spent most of the time on her feet and right hand. So disappointed when time ran out before I could do the left hand.

: 7/20. I just like this one. I really wished I could spend another hour on it.

: 7/20. I got a lot on paper in only five minutes. I like the overall gesture, and that right arm.

: 7/20. I put this one in even though the proportions are wrong (she wasn’t this stocky) because the overall gesture works and I like the knees.

: 7/13. Short pose, but expressive.

: 7/13. I knew halfway through that I’d made the back too long, but with no time to erase half the drawing, I just carried on. I like the turn of the head and neck, and the subtle shading I started on the back.

: 7/6. Each pose seems to suggest a different place, or places, to focus. Here they were the collarbone and the feet and hand.

: 7/6. Another great pose. It made me want to get the weight of all those limbs right: one leg resting on the other, hand resting on leg.

: 7/6. This woman did such inventive poses–it was really fun to try to capture her gestures. I think I did here, and I like the arms.

: 6/29. I think all the time went into the left hand and left foot. I don’t usually spend time on faces–that’s not what I’m there for, yet–but this time it worked out.