Life drawing with Asha

This was my 6th life-drawing session. The model was a young woman called Asha.

We began with a couple of five-miute poses which I did in pencil. In this first one, I've hit my old problem of doing the legs too small, which seems to happen when I've got the drawing board on my lap..

 In the second pose, I deliberately worked on the legs, and have probably made the model too tall and thinner than she actually was. Also, at the last minute I noticed that her left foot was further back than I'd drawn it. But I was out of time be then.

I decided to switch to Conte crayon for this next crouched pose of 10 minutes....With more time, I'd have tidied up the foot.

In the final session of 50 mnutes, I did two drawings of the same pose from different angles. The pose was quite an awkward one to portray with the fireshortening the legs. But I do like the effects that can be achieved with the Conte crayons..

Life drawing with Erol

This was the 5th life-drawing session I've attended. Erol the model was a middle aged man with quite a hairy body.

In this 10-minute pose, I used Conte crayon on coloured paper.

 This pose was for 20 minutes, and for me the biggest challenge was to depict the left leg as it went away from me. I've stuck with Conte crayon, which is a medium I'm beginning to like, especially being able to use white on coloured paper.

In this final pose of 50 minutes, I switched to pencil. Here the main challenge to the right leg, which the model had splayed to one side, facing away from me, although the shin and foot faced back. I had a couple of attempts on this, and although I did try to draw what I saw, the limbs still look a bit small compared to the body. As I say, the pose was slightly awkward, with the model sinking into the cushion of the Chesterfield sofa.

Two images of Lesley seated

The first of these images was done in charcoal, and took about 15 minutes.

I'm not particularly pleased with the result. One problem is that I've found that when drawing with a board held on my lap, I tend to do the legs too small and I'm not too sure how to remedy it. Maybe using an easel, which would enable me to step back from the picture and get a more holistic view.

 This second image in pencil is a bit more successful, I think, although I still struggled with the right leg. There was some foreshortening with the knee pointed towards me, and the foot going back under the chair. This took about 20 minutes.