Quick Poses

I went to Pegasus (my favourite art supplier) this weekend in order to stock up on materials. While there I saw a leaflet for a weekly life drawing class, and decided to sign up.

Mainly I just want to explore my own mark-making within a life drawing environment, where I can practise using much freer lines and blocking-in, during shorter poses (typically 15 minutes, up to an hour) than I’m used to. I’d be quite happy for the sessions to be untutored, but the artist taking the class acted as a great anchor, without being at all prescriptive, so I didn’t feel the frustration that can come from someone else imposing their direction.

The sketches here are a couple of examples from the morning. I never usually work with pastel, so I’m pleased with how these turned out. I think my experience with charcoal worked in my favour here. I was complimented on my use of colour, but I can honestly say that I gave this very little thought. My attention was on trying to represent the tonal values and flow of light. If these look believable, in theory, any colour combination will work. To quote a friend from Sarum Studio, “tone does the work, colour gets the credit”.