Chair with cushion

This is a small nursing chair we've had for years. I've used charcoal to do a fairly swift drawing of it, and the sketch underwent a fair amount of adjustment during the process, as you can see from the smudges. It just shows that quite a simple shape can be hard to capture (especially when you've not been practising very much recently). It's still not quite right, but it's an image I'll keep working on.

Sophie leaning back on a chair

My granddaughter Sophie, aged 9, can't stay still for long, so I got here to pose on this chair and took a few photos, and then made this sketch from the best one.

It is done in charcoal, with the pad supported by an easel so that I could work vertically. Some initial studies got the legs a bit too short, and the tilt of the head and the angle of the left arm took a few tried before I got them fairly right.

I tried to fill in quite a lot of detail, but felt I might actually ruin the image if I tinkered any more. So this slightly unfinished picture was the result, and was the main piece for my final assignment.

Liz does Facebook

In the final stages of my drawing course, I did this charcoal sketch of my daughter Elizabeth in a typical pose - crouched over her phone textng and updating her Facebook status.

I took some photos of her in the pose (as she would not have stayed still), and then used a stick of charcoal taped to a long brush to do the main part of the drawing. This was recommended by my tutor as a way of freeing up my rather cramped style. I finished off the detail with charcoal held in the hand, as the long stick was a little hard to control.

The whole thing took no more than 10 minutes, and I'm quite pleased with the immediacy of the pose and the sense of frantic concentration...(and yes, she does have long prehensile toes).

Two fashion pictures

It occured to me that fashion photographs are usually well posed and well lit, and could provide some subject matter for sketches. These two are based on ads found in the Sunday Times Style section.

This first one was done in pencil. I quite like the picture, although I have to admit the result does not bear a close likeness to model in the the original photograph...

For this one, I used oil pastels and experimented with smudging the lines to achieve shading and form.
Again, the result is not a good likeness of the model, but I think that in some aspects of the image - around the nose and the cheeks - the effect works quite well.

Four self-portraits

In this first pencil drawing, I've tried to convey what I think are my most distinctive features - a slightly bent nose and two very different eye shapes. Looking at it now, I needed to work more on the subtleties of shading, on the mouth, and also on the hair.

This second charcoal sketch was done much more quickly, and I like it a lot more. And when I showed it to my 9-year-old grand-daughter, she recognised it as being me, which was gratifying.

This 3rd pencil sketch, I think, works slightly better than the first, especially around the mouth.
However, my attempt to depict my own rather scrawny 'turkey' neck has not worked at all.

In this final sketch, I decided to switch to oil pastels and have some fun with colour. Not sure about the results, but I'd like to explore this medium a bit more.

Life drawing with Tracy

With a new group based in Deal, Kent, we had a model who did just a few longer poses.
In this first pose, Tracy adopted a rather slouched pose in a metal chair.

I started off with this pencil drawing, with the emphasis on line. Compared to the charcoal sketch I did afterwards (see below), I think it lacks some life and vigour. while I am a lot happier with the charcoal one.

 In this last one-hour pose, I continued with charcoal, and added some colour with Conte crayon.
I did quite a lot of re-working of this, and made the left foor larger at quite a late stage, realising that the foreshortening was not properly reflected in my picture.

Life drawing with Charlotte

In this session, we began with a couple of one- and two-minute poses. I decided to use a fine pen for this, and I'm quite pleased with the spontaneity of the poses.

Then we had two five-minute poses

 I think that, having more time to think, my lines have less vigour than the ones above. I realise I need to develop more confidence to do bold confident lines.

 

In this 20-minute pose, I reverted to pencil and I think it lacks any real life. Also the legs look too small and the feet are completely wrong.

In this last pose of 40 minutes, I switched to Conte crayon on coloured paper. I like the hand better than the feet.