— Day 3 —

I know I said I was going to focus on animals, but this lady was too fun to sketch while I was in a meeting.

Life Drawing Mondays…

10-minute pose (Sharpie Marker)

This week I got to draw an older gentleman, something I haven't done in nearly 10 years—draw a man that is. It seems like in all the figure drawing classes and sessions I have attended, women are models probably 90% of the time. At the beginning of the session, I really wasn't feeling it, drawing wise. I felt like my line work was stiff and overly bothered. I really think the only drawing I enjoyed out of the session was the pastel portrait. Oh well!

10-minute pose (Graphite)

10-minute pose (Graphite)

15-minute pose (Sharpie and Graphite Wash)

20-minute pose (Pastels)

1-minute pose (Graphite)

Life Drawing Mondays…

There is one fail-safe technique to drawing that will always make your drawings better. Draw more. So, I will keep going to The Drawing Studio to do just that. The model for the morning had a very punk-rock look to her—she even had a slight Mohawk going on. I had a very off day today though—forgetting things, dropping my supplies, kicking my bag off my chair—I almost gave up for the morning. But I didn’t and here are my samples from this week.

One-minute gestures to loosen both the artists and the model up.

10-Minute pose

10-minute pose. I focused on portrait only with conté on sand paper.

20-minute pose. This is black conté on gray sandpaper.

20-minute pose. Used white conté on black paper. I don’t think I enjoy this technique—which probably means I should do it more in the future, because I’m not very good at it.

10-minute pose.

25-minute pose. Again, I focused on portrait only. This is the first time I’ve ever used pastels in a life drawing session. And, it’s probably only the 3rd or 4th time I’ve ever used pastels in my life. I liked them a lot, but now that I see this drawing out of the studio, I realize, she’s kind of lopsided.

Life Drawing Mondays…

Monday morning I attended the Life Drawing session at The Drawing Studio in downtown Tucson. It's been a little over a year since I've been and they have a wonderful new facility. It's always inspiring being downtown especially during business hours. I will definitely make this a weekly event if I can find the time.

I tried a few different techniques this session, starting with quick 1 minute charcoal gestures. These are meant to loosen you up and to quickly get the idea of the image in a quick manner. I generally do as many as possible on one sheet and don't worry about the direction. This session, I tried to focus mostly on portraits and used charcoal, conté, water soluble graphite, ink pen (forcing myself to not be able to erase) and white charcoal on black paper.







In all my years drawing and even in college I have never tried drawing with white charcoal on dark paper. I had to force myself to think backwards and only paint highlights.

Pencil Sketches

On Drawing the Figure

For me, drawing the human figure is about going back to basics. Going back to when I was in school studying fine art at Colorado State University. My favorite teacher, Gary L Keimig, taught the most fundamental aspects of figure drawing. Starting with 30-second gesture drawings you learn to loosen up both your mind and body.

Gesture Drawing

30-second gestures:



10-minute gesture

3-Hour Pose

Conté Sketch