Life, oh Life

I've been back to life drawing sessions again - just a model and a group of fellow strugglers, no tuition. I stopped going some years back as I'd collected such a pile of drawings that I didn't know what to do with. It is one of my favourite things to do, when you get into such total concentration on contours, shadows and the subtlest of tones and hues that you lose all sense of time or whatever else is going on... but I did get to a stage when the whole exercise seemed a bit pointless, so since I've returned to it I've been trying to find new ways to interest myself - which for me usually comes by way of happy semi-accidents. Semi because I do use the watercolour very wet, and allow it to do its thing with just a little guidance from me. This one came closest to making me feel a bit excited to go further with this approach, with other more controlled or less successful attempts below. I tend to get some great bits, like an arm or a left leg, together with some awful ones, a bad torso or face, I need to get all the great bits together in one painting!

The model for most of these has been bringing her Jack Russell with her, which has provided another lovely dynamic to the poses (and two models for the price of one). A bit sad though as the little dog is old and not well, and so content to lie quietly wherever she's placed - the closeness between the two is obvious. 

The charcoals are quick poses, I think the first was half an hour and the others five minutes. The watercolours mostly half an hour - the one at the bottom an hour.

 

These are all quite big - perhaps I wouldn't have such trouble storing them if they were smaller, but strangely given all the small scale sketching I do, I feel compelled to do large figure studies - even A2 paper isn't quite big enough!