Warm ups

Here are some of my daily early morning warm up sketches and the figure drawing I did of Sarabella on Wednesday night at Ateleir Artista. http://www.atelierartista.com

Bring in the new year with naked bodies....

We haven't missed a Wednesday evening since we opened, and we don't plan on it. Practice makes perfect after all. If you'd like to join us, c'mon down on Wednesday, we have Sarabella modelling for us again. Here's my sketches from the last session we did with her.

This year our first Wednesday evening figure drawing was with Neema. Here's what I drew with new charcoal on bamboo paper.

We also had a figure drawing and time management course for Studio C/Prospect, heres a video peek below.

Go here for more info: https://www.atelierartista.com/figure-drawing

On our way to the holidays

Lots has been going on as we careen toward the holidays. I'm excited for some time off but it wont really be off at all, my list just seems to be growing and growing but regular figure drawing is still happening. every Wednesday 7 -  10 pm at Atelier Artista. http://atelierartista.com

Marla came in for two Mondays evening sessions for private study with some Art friends.

I had a really off day with lots of interruptions and didn't manage to get out anything I was happy with.

We were very lucky to get to draw Jenn who is pregnant with twins another evening.

Last Wednesday Alexia came and posed for our regular Wednesday evening figure drawing session.

We have so much fun figure drawing here....

"Window-shading" the sketched figure

Lately my figure drawing process has become window-shading. its a fast way, after a general lay in, to capture and render from head to toe. This time I didn't quite make it to the end and left the foot unfinished revealing my process. Essentially "window-shading" is an area by area method of working on the piece after the overall composition has been drawn in. Below is the one I did from the last figure drawing session at Atelier Artista.

If you'd like to join in the fun we draw from life every Wednesday night 7 - 10 pm at Atelier Artista located n the fourth floor of cSPACE!

Figuring it out

This post is to help anyone wanting to know the breakdown of  process and time I do my figure drawings. Each sitting is approx. 20 min. In the first sitting I try and get the gesture and the major shapes and cast shadows blocked in. I've indicated the placement of the head and its size but haven't gotten lost in the details.

Next, I add further refinements and begin the "window dressing" from top down, the first session the head and shoulders.

Then I just keep moving down. This time torso, breasts and part of the upper leg. I leave the hands out because I feel its better to leave them for a different sitting.

I keep moving down as time allows. I get in the back arm, some hand and the foot. I tone the background to help me define the leg.

In the final sitting I finish off the leg, work out a bit more of the hand and add some space and place her on the model stand.

So thats it in a nutshell.
5 sittings of 20 min = 100 min
or 1 hr. 40 min. drawing time.

"HIPPY TRIPPY"

As a bonus for  checking out this blog heres a video of my neighbour Ann checking out the pieces I painted in 3D and have on display outside the Atelier for tomorrows Student show and sale starting at 2 pm if you want to swing by and check them out!

Drawing from life marathon part 1! 8 new drawings from last night

After the regular Wednesday night long pose figure Drawing at Atelier Artista, I teach a figure drawing class at ACAD, the next day Mark Northcott hosts a Liquid Imagination figure drawing event at the Atelier.
I had the night off, and though I felt totally beat and that I should have gotten sleep...........
I was like..............Naaaah! I attended the event and made some of the quick sketches of burlesque dance Eva Angel that you can check out below. I have classes to teach this Saturday but part two will come after I make more figure drawings at the Draw 'til you drop event on Sunday!

Steps to draw this figure

Every single Wednesday, since I opened Atelier Artista, we host a long pose figure night. Here are the photos of my piece as it progressed in each seating from last night's session with U of C model Toma.

In the first 20  or so minutes I try to orient my figure and get some of the major masses and shapes down.

Note: Often I fall into inspiration traps along the way like with the hand or arm sucking my interest and then i focus on the detail instead of blocking in the bigger shapes, its better to keep it big and simple at first.

In the second seating, I map out the shadow shapes and block in some more of the forms. I left the head at this point knowing that as the sessions progress she will sink deeper into relaxation and the pose would change in some areas so I leave them loose for now.

I add some detail and refinements with my lights and darks including some background tone and a pillow. By this point, I find that I'm fairly blind to what I'm doing so if you have a great group of people like I do, I ask for advice on what I can focus on in the final sitting so I can refine what I've got rather than flounder around getting nowhere fast.

It seems by the end that there is just never enough time, but after about two hours I'm usually pretty happy with what I've done and need to let it sit int he back of my mind. Plus, I work a lot and by this point I'm spent and about to turn into a pumpkin.

If you'd like to come draw Wednesday evening 7 -10 PM. Visit http://ateleirartista.com and chack out the figure drawing events. If you cant do Wednesday evening we have two Fridays a month with Mark Northcott's "Liquid Imagination" sessions as well.

ACAD figure drawing June 28/2017

For our final figure drawing class at ACAD we had Suzie model once more for long pose. we started with warm ups to get ourselves ready and got deeper into rendering and shading.

Draw 'til you drop

Since my last posts have had figure drawing in them I figured now was the best time to share some of my sketched from this past week-end Draw 'til you drop event hosted at Molson Coors building in Bridgeland.  I offered to lend my drawing donkeys and an easel to the event and took part in drawing the models over the week-end. Amazingly the majority of them fit in my CRV without folding them.

Here are some of the pages from my newsprint pad. Below are warm ups of a min and more all the way to the longest pose I did which was 40 min in two 20 min. sits.

Day 2 begins here with warm ups with Will.