Paper and Threads

I am participating in Figuary again this February.  It is a combined daily figure drawing program at "Love Life Drawing" (You Tube) and Croquis Café (Vimeo).  Kenzo at Love Life Drawing gives a short lesson, 10 min or less, and Croquis Café has models doing short poses for you to draw.  I've included links at the end of this post.

Today Kenzo reviewed drawing methods of Richard Powell who specializes in 1 and 2 minute poses.  The poses were very short at Croquis Café 15 sec up to 5 min, and I just paused the clock and sketched as fast as I could (2 min or less for each) trying to use Powell's method.  Here are the 12 quick drawings - each was done on 1/4th sheet of used copy paper.

Group A

Group B

Group C

Links for February.  You need to sign up for Vimeo before you can open Croquis Café which has the model poses.

Day 1 Tutorial: https://youtu.be/OcS3927iLYw

Day 1 Croquis Cafe  practice session: https://vimeo.com/385683231

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One of my favorite Figure Drawing models was back, and I became obsessed with drawing his dreadlocks.  He is very tall, very thin, and very muscular - a great combination.  These are 4 of the drawings I did during the session.

Five Minute Pose: 

Ten Minute Pose:

Ten Minute Pose:

Twenty Minute Pose

Posted by Shirley at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I want to start off the New Year drawing more line of action figures.  I started these small drawings in 2018, and only occasional ly sketched them in 2019.  I typically draw them quickly if I have a minute after breakfast, using a photo from  one of 2 books created for artists.  They are drawn on small pieces of scrap paper, and eventually painted and cut out to collage in my working sketchbook.  These figures were placed on a monprint made with a Gelli Plate.

Posted by Shirley at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Figure Drawing on the Upper Westside - NYC

I am posting these selected drawings in reverse order today - 20, 10, and 5 minute poses.  I sketched with a GENERAL Sketch and Wash pencil and then used my water brush to move the graphite to add shading. 

Twenty Minutes:  The model had a little pose drift with some rotation, and suddenly I saw his left arm appear during the last 5 minutes.  There was no other change in his pose.

Ten Minute Pose

Five Minute Pose (with cropping).

This is a lovely location for figure drawing and many of our Battery Park City artist friends come here after the outdoor figure drawing ends for the year on Oct 31st. 

Posted by Shirley at 6:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just completed a 14 week course at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT).  I usually take courses in Fine Arts, Illustration, and Textile Design.  This course was in the Fashion department, but was really more illustration for fashion.  I learned how to draw a "croquis," the 10 head size elongated fashion figure, and to work with markers and colored pencils instead of watercolor.  My end of class project was presented several days ago and this was Board #1 - my models in 2 outfits from my 9 garment collection of clothes.

These were my actual fabric swatches, gathered from my favotie NYC fabric store - B and J Fabrics on 7th Ave in the Garment District.

These are the basic designs for my 9 piece collection.  They are called "Flats" in the fashion jargon. and show the details of construction.  My boards are 11" x 14" inches and had to be photographed instead of scanned - and even photoshop couldn't get rid of the shadows.

This is my "Mood Board" - prepared to give a feeling about the type of collection and the target shopper.

Everyone of the models have gray hair like me (and my professor), but were dressed in classic styles of clothing.  I am in class with young students who are studying to enter the world of fashion, and it was great fun to see all of their ideas for their presentations.

Posted by Shirley at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)