Paper and Threads

Last night I went to Figure Drawing at the Society of Illustrators in New York City.  I think some of the people that I see there regularly go twice each week.  I'd love to go twice each month, but will probably never go more frequently than that.  This time I took my 9B woodless pencil and stumper that I played with when I was reading Bill Rankin's Fast Sketching Techniques book and loved using them for the longer poses.  Here is one page for 2 min, 5 min, 10 min, and 20 minute poses.  My new sketchbook is slightly bigger than my scanner and the person sitting next to me created charcoal dust periodically that drifted onto my page - so I cleaned them up as well as possible.

Two Minute Poses for each Model (2 of 20):  

Five Minute Pose (1 of 4):

Ten Minute Pose (1 of 2):

Twenty Minute Pose (1 of 3):

Posted by Shirley at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I had a leisurely Mother's Day yesterday and then joined my NYC children and their spouses for dinner!  It was wonderful relaxing in my PJs all day.  When we returned from dinner, I decided to draw my art mannequin in pencil (look closely) and then dress her in my PJs to remember this lovely day.  

Posted by Shirley at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I am slowly working my way through the Dodson Keys to Drawing book projects.  I have two more projects in Chapter 3 and five more chapters total.

I posted Project 3A - Standing Figure - in January. 

Project 3B is to draw a lounging figure.  I used a photo from my book The Nude Figure by Mark Edward Smith. 

Project 3C is to draw a reclining figure (foreshortened).  I used another photo from my book The Nude Figure by Mark Edward Smith. 

Project 3D is to draw a full face portrait.  I used a photo of Obama and practiced using a grid system.  The drawing can be seen here.

Project 3E is to draw a three-quarter view portrait.  I used a photo from morguefile.com.

Although there is a section on drawing profiles, there is no project for drawing a profile in the book.  But I decided that I needed the practice.  I used a photo from morguefile.com. 

Posted by Shirley at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I love the drawings of Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572) and today joined my friend Melly at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to draw some of them for the second time.  My first drawings were posted here.  The exhibit ends April 18th. so I will even have time to return for more.  All of the drawings were done with a Caran d'Ache aquarelle pencil (Mahogany).

 Study for his painting Jealousy - and for me More Hand Drawing Practice:

Head of a Young Woman - and for me the challenge was getting the correct angle for the head: 

Study of Crossed Legs - and for me lots of crosshatching for shading

Posted by Shirley at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Last night was my monthly session at figure drawing.  Since they are held twice each week, I can usually find at least one night to go each month.  The format remains the same - two models in ten 2 minute poses, four 5 minute poses, two 10 minute poses, and three 20 minute poses while sketching with wine and live jazz.  I sat in a different area of the room last night and wrestled with the angle during most of the 2 minute poses.  Here are a few from the 5, 10, and 20 minute poses.  I'm still sketching with plain graphite.

5 minutes:

5 Minutes:

10 Minutes:

20 Minutes:

20 Minutes:

Posted by Shirley at 8:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)