Yet another subject that was approached with trepidation.

Having virtually no experience of drawing, and no formal tuition the thought of drawing the human form seemed an impossible task.

Initial drawing session of a personal object (took place at the start of the course prior to the Life Drawing class). This session was good preparation for the life drawing class. My personal object was one of my 18 month old granddaughter’s toys. I was pleasantly surprised with the result. I was please that this session had already taken place to give me an opportunity to draw an object that I could physically see and touch.

Looking at the frame supporting the toy the clamps reminded me of an eye and mouth. Although this was perhaps not part of the brief I included my imaginations’ into the picture adding a bit more surrealism over and above the weird image that I had already created.

I learnt a lot from this initial session. I didn’t do an initial sketch which wasted time further along the way. The proportions of each element of the toy were not considered before starting to draw. After many corrections the drawing ended up being reasonably similar to the object, but if I had done some brief sketches first the problems would have presented themselves before adding finer detail.

Additional sketching of people formed part of the printmaking classes, which was also very useful preparation for the life drawing class. See end of this post or the printmaking post for images.

Later in the term, Life Drawing!

My expectations were low when the class started. Although I made mistakes I learnt a lot about the technicalities and structure of the human form and made a determined attempt at a realistic representation of Kit (the model).

I was particularly please with my drawings of hands, and also the facial section of the final drawing.

The initial line drawings using a technique of drawing without looking at the paper was interesting, although not true to life the and result was better than anticipated.

After the technicalities or hands and feet were explained the task seemed less daunting. The smaller hand is a copy of Kit’s pose, the larger one a copy of my own hand.

Some guidance was gratefully received to make the drawing of the foot more acceptable

The final drawing was reasonably successful. I found the feet hard, especially taking perspective into account. The cushion could also have been improved with additional tuition/time.

A quick charcoal drawing was also part of the session. I think this drawing was the best of all of the work done that day. It captures an atmosphere in addition to the actual art depiction

Overall I was pleased with my progress. I learnt from mistakes and assistance from Gunther and will strive to practice drawing more often, both objects and people to improve my skills.

More sketches, some with a bit of watercolour:

I used the same skills in week one of printmaking when sketching people at the Imperial War Museum

Using the same subjects and transferable skills in different classes enhances my satisfaction with the course and my learning experience, and allows me to recognise the importance of all of the individual elements of art and design, and how they interact.