Kitty's Drawings

Hi All,

The last life drawing class for quite some time – busy in the coming weeks and who knows when I’ll get to go next. We were learning about light this time so some of these were drawn in the dark!

This weekend was spent cleaning in preparation for my parents coming to visit soon. I scored some free tickets to the Taste of Melbourne and we’re going to go see the European Masters exhibtion at the NGV – It’s going to be a big weekend! In the meantime, the cleanup meant we rearranged our office area. Its always good when my desk gets a tidy as I feel that much more motivated to draw stuff  We put up some art we’ve had for a while but never displayed and my bf is in the process of getting some frames for a couple of his photo prints. I think I’ll print up some of my own drawings and get those framed too – believe it or not, I only have one of my paintings on display in our home!

And now that life drawing is finished for the time being, I’ve been pushing myself to get started on the digital again. I do have something in the works which is just a practice but I’m liking it. No previews until it’s finished as I have a terrible habit of never finishing those drawings that I show previews of.

Other exciting news -  I shall be taking part in a Melbourne Spring Fashion Week event as an assistant to a well known blogger. I won’t spill the secret just yet as I haven’t even had a fitting yet (!!) so I don’t want to babble too much. All I’ll say now is that it ties in very nicely to my insatiable obsession with vintage threads….

So in the next few weeks you’ll probably get some different posts that aren’t ALL about drawing. Til then, seeya!

Hello

Down to the second last life drawing class (I think). Drapery was the subject this time and how we see the figure differently with clothes on. Drawing clothing can disguise the true form and it can be more difficult to draw ‘across the body’ like you would with a nude. Instead, you can fall into the trap of only drawing the outline which leaves things looking flat.

Warm ups….I think all the ones I scanned are about 30 seconds. Funnily enough, it feels better to use 30 seconds instead of 1 minute per pose for the warm up – gets you loosened up quicker. Our teacher likens these to stretching before going for a jog

The contour and the tone drawing. I did a blind contour this time – not looking at the page while you draw and not lifting your charcoal.

I did two drawings again for the final 20/20mins. The first one without any drapery and the second one with. Kinda stuffed up the arm on the first one….

So after tomorrow I think I have no more classes. I’ll need to get back into the self-direction. Get back into this digital stuff. I have a whole bunch of inspiration pics – and lots of ideas ready to go. Need to get off my ass and DO IT.

Bya!

Hii!

Bit late this week huh?

Not much to say about life drawing for this week – we focused on linework which I’m never that comfortable with.

Warm-ups:

Then some longer poses…

Then the final – I did 2 different ones in the 2 lots of 20mins we had this time. Only because I wasn’t too pleased with where the first one was going. Boo. And still not too sure about the last one either.

For the first time in ages, I’ve attempted to do some drawing outside of my classes. Yeh, I’m that slack. Funny thing I noticed is that I draw VERY differently when I’m muckin’ about at home. I think it’s that I don’t have as much room – drawing with my hand instead of my arm….and having a model is much different to using a photograph for reference. The photograph flattens everything and I can’t ‘feel’ the shape of the form in the same way. If only I could use a real model for reference ALL the time. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Til next week, seeeeeya!

Hi All!

Another week and another life drawing class. And still with the black and white.

Just LOVING the charcoal right now, particularly the pressed stuff – it gives such a velvety rich black. Usually I start with the regular willow charcoal to get the basics down as it’s more workable – much softer and easy to rub out if you make a mistake. Then when it’s time to pay attention to the bits I want to highlight, I use the compressed charcoal. So much awesomeness.

Attempting to format my pictures a bit better too as I’ve been very slack on that front ( ). I also found a Flickr widget that makes importing my pics onto the blog a bazillion times easier. No annoying copy and paste yay!

This weeks class was excellent as ever – I like the last piece the best as usual but not sure if it’s my favourite of all….was a tricky pose from where I was standing but it came out okay. The teacher does give me an awfully big head too so I usually leave class feeling rather good about myself….though often with that little voice in the back of my head squeaking, “Oooh but you can do BETTER Esz – you can do MORE. Tsk tsk never enough never enough”.

A couple of the 1 minute warm-ups – most of these were shocking so you only get to see these two:

A go at trying to show weight and volume with line only and the next one ‘sculpting’ with charcoal. This is done by first laying out the basic shape of the figure in a mid-grey and then ‘pushing’ the parts receding from you in a darker tone, and ‘pulling’ out the opposite by removing the charcoal from the paper. Hard to explain. I’m a bit meh about it.

Then, the last piece which is all YAY Hehee. Looks more like a landscape doesn’t it?

Oooh and of course, Puss wants a look-see

Hope everyone’s week has been treating them alright so far Til next time!

Hi Everyone!
Another session of life drawing all done and dusted for the week – and yes I’m only getting this to you on a Thursday! Busy busy week! Work is insanely mad at the moment – the pile of jobs just doesn’t seem to get any smaller even though I’m there from 7am to 5pm every day.

Onto the drawing then….LOTS more progress this week – can’t believe how much I’m loving the class right now. I churned out a heap (this is only a few) and even managed to knock out some decent contour drawings.

We’ll start from the beginning – a whole bunch of 2 minute and then 1 minute poses to loosen up:

Then onto the contours….They look way different and while line is fun, I think I prefer shading…

^^^^^^
I’m quite proud of the one on the right

And then the last two poses went for 15mins and then 20mins (or something like that, the last one was long)….Plenty of time to really work on light and shade. Love drawing like this the most as its all tone and I dont have to worry about a perfect line, instead I just kind of pick out the form from the paper. Hard to explain, but thats what it feels like – more like sculpting I guess?

And this one – worked on that knee for quite a while

Until next time then peeps
Bye!

Omg drawings!!!
FINALLY.

So….I made the effort to take pictures of these cos we have a new life drawing teacher. I finished the first term and after a bit of drama with the previous teacher, one of the models and the gallery owner, they hired someone new for the next term.

Now there was no problem with our previous teacher but Monday’s session was particularly awesome. It felt a bit more “free” in that we didn’t have to be anatomically correct with our drawings and we didn’t have to finish the initial 3 minute poses.  I guess you could argue for and against both styles of teaching but I definitely felt I got further just in those two hours.

Here’s some of the first few 3 minute poses. It was all about the gesture and trying to get the feeling of the pose out as quick as possible.

In the middle of the session we did some contour drawing, where the aim is to not lift your pencil/charcoal off the page for the entire 10 minutes. Most of us FAILED the first time including me. I thought eh, one line I can do one line – but attempted to add tone with scribbles and it just wasn’t how you were supposed to do it. Doh!
Since I used graphite, the drawings are too shiny to take pics of properly and they’re kind of crap so you won’t be seeing those! Nyer! ;-P

Finally we did the last pose which was a really long one. Two sittings of 20 minutes. Plenty of time to refine your drawing or start afresh. I chose to refine – maybe a little too much as it takes out some of the energy of the pose but eh – I’m kinda proud of this one.
Hard to take a pic of this one without some crazy warping.

A better angle – Don’t mind Puss getting in on the action again!

Sooo – hopefully getting my drawing mojo back slowly….Seeya’s round!

Hi!!
Still struggling…..well….Not drawing very often. And sticking to these figure studies. Life drawing is awesome – Still haven’t got round to trying to photograph the last few weeks worth in daylight though.
Yes I suck.
Poor neglected bloggy…
Sorry for the lack of interesting content. Thanks for sticking around if you’re still reading!

Further attempts at shading. Getting there. The classes are helping me see tone better. And structure – all those underlying bones and how things connect, like in the knees and wrists. Ankles are hard though! Goddamn FEET.
Till next time….