Ballerina at rest - two poses

My regular fortnightly life-drawing session had a new twist this time. Our model was a ballerina wearing a leotard and long lacey ballet skirt.
After a few quick practice sketches, we did this pose of 20 minutes, with our model curled up as if resting or sleeping. From my angle, this proved quite challenging with the legs mostly hidden from view. I chose to use Conte crayons on a coloured paper, in order to capture the white of the leotard and the skirt.

We then did a longer pose of 55 minutes, which I found quite inspiring and rather reminiscent of some of Degas' pictures, where he captured the dancers in off-guarded moments.
I have tried to depict the tranquility of the pose as well as the delicate muscularity of the dancer herself (such as the prominent collar-bones). I have to admit the face is not a good likeness of the model and I'm not sure about the left arm and especially the hand tying the shoe-ribbon.
But on balance, I'm not too displeased with the overall image.

Life drawing with Geoff

I think this was my sixth life drawing session. The model this time was a well preserved man in early middle age, with grey hair and a beard.

This first five-minute sketch was done in charcoal, and still shows that I'm having trouble with proportions while holding the drawing board. Basically I start off OK at the top but the legs end up looking too short. I've tried working with an easle but this presents its own difficulties. However, I think I need to be able to step back from the picture every now and then to ensure I'm maintaining the right proportions.

We then went for a 15-minute pose with the model seated. I switched to using Conte crayon for this.
Looking at this now, I'm quite pleased with the left arm and hand, which really seems to be gripping the crossed leg. The right arms is less successful, and the left foot needs to be better defined to stand out from the leg beneath it.

Finally, the model adopted a reclining pose. Still using Conte crayon, I ended up doing three sketches of the same pose from different angles. Working from both the head and the feet, it was a real challenge to get the foreshortening right. It was really difficult and I was very unhappy with the pictures at the time, although now I'm slightly more satisfied with some aspects of them, helped by the use of white crayon to depict light.

Fabric draped on a chair

In this exercise (P 118 in course notes), the aim was to depict a piece of fabric draped over a chair.

I had three shots at this, using pen, charcoal and pencil, and I think each created their own effects and challenges. Although I felt safer using pencil, I have to say the boldness of the charcoal and the clarity of the pen sketch is much more eye-catching.

It's worth saying, I guess, that the exercise proved a lot harder than expected, and I think I'd like to experiment more with different types of fabric (silk, velvet) to see if I can express the actual texture of these different materials.

Anyway, here they are in the order they were drawn (pen, charcoal and pencil)...Still some work to do to show how the fabric hangs on the shape of the chair.