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Friday 15 July 2016

Life Drawing at Old Slen Art

I attended at The Old Slen Art group on Wednesday night to finally partake of a life drawing class.

I've never been to one before and it was an eye opening experience.

The class was run by Stuart and the model was his friend Paul.

It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time and every art teacher will tell you that , you have to draw from life at some point.

Well the first twenty minutes flew by as we did two minute poses one after the other. 
I felt like crawling under the huge red curtain laid on the floor behind me , I was hardly getting anything on the paper that resembled a human when the timer pinged and we were off on the next pose.

I was cringing at what I was producing but I knew having read about the recess that the was just to get us warmed up and I clung o to the hope that I'd improve as the evening progressed.
Stuart wandered by every so often paused behind me and remained silent , increasing my sense of despair.

I soldiered on , ever hopeful.

Then we moved onto a twenty minute pose with charcoal (we were oreviously using graphite pencil) 
On a larger scale , approx A4 size. 

I was happier with what I was now doing and Stuart this time paused , took a hold of the charcoal and just passed on a little of his experience and a kind word. I was feeling a little more relaxed and felt like I was holding my own a now, with some if not all of the group. 

So then we had a tea break a look round every one else's work , a little chat and back to it for a forty minute pose.


I took out another A4 piece of paper to start afresh and Stuart asked if I wanted a larger piece. 
"You're only here once , go for it" 

It seemed that I was holding back. 

"Dive in, be bold" said Stuart.

This huge desolate blank space stood before me. I dove in with five or six massive broad strokes. 
Stuart actually said , "Wow , you've gone for it, nice one " 

Paul had the patience of a saint as the 40 minute pose became 45, 46,47,48 minutes.


Eventually with a tweak here and there I stood back and thought "yeah, that's ok for a virgin " ! 

The two efforts side by side.












Tuesday 12 July 2016

Frank Skinner

Mr Skinner loves his art , as can be seen from the Sky Arts programmes he presents and the sitting he did for John Myatt when he asked to be painted in the style of Vincent Van Gogh.

So I've done a quick sketch. 

He was in the crowd this week at Wimbledon , so I captured a still of him.