Life Drawing week 8 (after a massive hiatus!)

I've finally returned to life drawing class after, I think, almost a year! It feels very much like starting again from scratch, but I think there was some decent work this week. We started with a ten minute pose (although that included getting set up etc.):

Overall, not bad for such a long layoff. Obviously I didn't get down to the lower legs, feet, or to detailing the hand. The knees and calves were very rushed so are really just place holders, and the right thigh was troublesome.

Next was a couple of of short gesture poses, which instead of using to rough out a full figure, I used to capture quick important details:

The top pose is kind of a mess but at least captures the twist in the torso to some extent. The bottom pose suffers from poor perspective with the lower legs again, and in fact overall has issues of proportion.

After this came a longer seated pose before the break, around 20 minutes:

The most glaring issue is the mess of a left foot, which is a shame as if I'd managed to use the ankle to suggest the twist in the lower leg it could have worked quite well. Unfortunately the class was ridiculously full and I could barely see it! The back of the knee, with more detail, could have worked. The torso has issues as regards the shoulder placement and effect that has on the back, but could have been refined by bringing the right arm in a bit and having more detail on that elbow. I do like the transition from hip to upper thigh on the left leg though, I think it captured the muscle tensing quite well. I was aiming for a kind of sketchy, hightened approach rather than a strict realism which I think the piece sort of has. It will need work, though.
After this, we restarted the second half with a 10 minute pose:

 

 The pose itself was quite unusual, given how little of the model I could see, so I started from the face and worked outwards, trying to use the minimum of information to suggest the pose. The left shoulder is too rounded, and the upper arm sits strangely on it. The left hand is too big, and the right hand barely made it on to the page. The upper right arm is too small, so the foreshortening needed to be better indicated. Still, it was OK for such a short pose.
Next up were a few short gesture poses, only two of which I really got anything on the page for:

 

Due to the layout of the room some poses were very difficult to see. I quickly sketched this in as I intended to exaggerate the perspective as a bit of an experiment. I would have liked a bit more time to get this pose down as it was very interesting, but, alas, it was only a 3 minute pose. Next was a slightly longer pose, I think 7 or 8 minutes:

I was pretty happy with this. The right thigh is a little narrow and having time to try and at least sketch in the top of the left shin would have really helped it be more evocative but for the short time I had, I was pleased with what I came up with. Finally, a 25 minute sitting pose:

Both models were seated high for us to sketch but given how slow I am at this, I thought it was best to concentrate on one! Perhaps the waist is a bit narrow, although the model was very slim so it seemed to check out at the time. The angle of the right forearm was a trial to get right and I still dont; think it is, so it and the right hand look small. The left leg looks too big, too high and dominant, but I think the pose shifted slightly along the line and I didn't adjust to it properly. I used a different technique here than elsewhere though, drawing out in pencil first, and using a charcoal pencil, grey tones compressed charcoal and willow charcoal in various places to get the effect I wanted quickly. When time was drawing to a close I quickly marked out where I wanted to shade and filled some in when I returned home as well, again, time was not on my side.

Not bad though, there are two or three pieces here I like and would say are better than previous work I have done in the class, which is pretty decent considering how out of practice I am. Hopefully this will be much more regular now.

New figure study

It's been a long time since I was last at life drawing class and I fear I'm getting rusty, so I want to get back to charcoal figure study practice to ensure I stay in some sort of shape in case I receive any more commissions.
I can't remember where I found the photograph of this pose but I was really drawn to the lighting, with those dramatic shadows across the back, the chance to practice both a front and back pose simultaneously, and the unguarded, slightly vulnerable pose. It didn't have the dramatic arching or dancer's poise that some of the others did, but just seemed very natural, almost documentary, which I found much more interesting than the more classical poses I have used before and seen elsewhere.

The final piece is A3 on paper, in Derwent charcoal pencil and grey shades compressed charcoal sticks. The mirror background is black acrylic paint and the mirror frame is C. Roberson & Co metallic pale gold acrylic paint, accented with charcoal pencils.

Wedding present commission number 3 (I think!)

I was asked to create a wedding gift but had minimal reference suggestions, other than the couple's invitations, which had a 1920s Art Deco theme. I also only had a few photo references to use, so having chosen the clearest image, I took a few practice runs at it. As I only had mobile phone images, I went with an illustration style that allowed for a lack of detail, so black ink linework with grey and white charcoal on toned paper. I thought this would allow for a big enough final piece to feel like a significant gift, and would feel a bit like a minimalist, modern update to the bold illustrative style of the '20s.
Once the illustration was sorted, it felt bare, so I sourced a large wallpaper sample from 1924 from Etsy and decided to decoupage the illustration on top of that and mount the piece in a box frame. I cut the piece out in a diamond and overlaid that on both a white and black mount to allow it to stand out from the similarly coloured background wallpaper. I hand wrote the bride and groom's names in an era-appropriate font in black ink and painted the inside of the lettering with gold acryilic.
The date of the wedding was written up and mounted in the same style as the illustration. The whole thing was double mounted and framed in a deep box frame. Finished size of the piece is 20" x 16" frame for a 15" x 10" final image.