Turban

Really enjoyed sketching this guy.

A seriously impressive beard.

3 seated commuters

A quick round up of recent sketches.

This guy was with a mate who talked the whole time and he just nodded and agreed with him, and looked ever so slightly bored with the flood of opinion his mate had.

Friendship often has such moments.

This guy had been shopping in Manchester city centre and I liked the designer bag on the seat beside him. Bags that stand up on their own, so the thing inside can be tiny tiny, but the bag bigs it up and makes it ultra important.

This girl dozed on the train in the sunlight, with a shawl wrapped over her arms and shoulders, which accentuated her face even more. I started a second sketch of her because she was so good, but, and I'm not sure if she was aware of me or if it was just sun avoidance, but she then draped the shawl over her face so all I had was a tuft of hair sticking out the top.

Ho hum.

Just noticed

that the USA has overtaken the UK in numbers of visitors according to my Flag Counter.

It had been UK at the top all along until now.

Arm and Cap

Am back into elbows again, as always.

Liked the way this guy was holding his head in his hand, but he moved the first couple of attempts...

...but happy with the final sketch. Feel I got the cap peak right for a change.

Maybe, somewhere in between all the lines and tries and sketching there is something approaching the truth of him. 

Maybe.

Ringbinder spine

Although not really, but I really like where the spiral ended up in this drawing and I think it contributes to the slightly elongated way the drawing ended up.

Ha.

Adjusted leg

I always do this.

When I stand at an easel to draw, I always draw the legs too big.

Because I am looking down at the lower half of the drawing and I draw from my perspective, standing there at that moment, and when I stand back and look at the drawing later the legs are out of proportion. It's like you have to cut the drawing in half and hold the top bit closer to your eye, then it balances out.

So I have had to adjust the leg in this one, as you will see if you look closely. I did a quick cut and paste to bring it all in balance. But confessing my sins here so as to keep the page true.

Mind you it is rare I even get there, I often run out of paper before then and have to leave the figure feetless. I am sure I have gone on about this before.

So I was very pleased that I got the whole pose in in this one, and seemingly in scale. Like the bulk of the body. it seems to sit down on the legs just right. 

I do love life drawing. It really shoves you forward. You can't help but get better.

Back from the dead - with life drawings !

Heya. I know, I know. It's been an age.

It was looking like I had wandered off and found something else.

But no such luck. It was just a combination of work away from home, and a new laptop, and no scanner.

So I need to kick things off again.

Went to the Spirited bodies Life drawing session in Holborn last night.

It was brilliant. it challenged my usual, possibly even lazy preconceptions about how I draw the figure.

You were stumped as to where to start with so many models posing together. And I did get lost in some of the set-ups, and the sketches almost make no sense out of context, so I'm keeping them in the sketch book.

But I did take the easy way out and just pick one figure to draw on a few of the poses.

Think the front arm is a bit off, feels it should be longer, but the shoulder was being held quite high. Not sure. On it's own it feels right, but overall it feels out.

Anyway, highly recommend this life class, if anyone is London based and looking.

More tomorrow.