Life Drawing Session 2

Last night I attended another session of life drawing. There was a few more people this time and Nikhil, the organizer, had set up a white perspex window which the model went behind to pose. She was lit from behind in two directions so through the perspex we could see a distorted silhouette and shadows. In some poses parts of her body touched the perspex and at the end of the session she moved in front of the perspex and Nikhil stood behind. All the initial poses were 1 - 2 minutes, then there were some longer ones but nothing longer than 15 minutes. I felt my drawing was a little more confident this week. Looking forward to the next session!

Life Drawing Session 1

Last night I attended a life drawing session for the first time in over 20 years! Life drawing was my favourite thing when I was at school but on my degree course the only life drawing sessions were outside of classes and with all the other work there often wasn't time to fit them in. I last attended a life drawing evening class when I lived in London in the early 90's.
I was a little trepidatious about going but it was actually terrific. The artist Nikhil Nathan Kirsh holds the sessions in his studio space at the Attico Art Centre in Watford. It was very informal - aside from the model there was only three of us drawing and a photographer.
Nikhil had an idea he wanted to try - using a projector to place photos from the previous week's session (of a male and female) over the the model to create all sorts of shadows and layers. It did feel a bit like diving in at the deep end but I was up for a challenge! The only trouble was that the lack of light made it a bit gloomy - after a while Nikhil got out some candles which helped a little. We did a quick warm-up followed by two longer poses and then another quick one at the end. I really enjoyed it, even though I'm VERY rusty having only worked with photos for so long. I can't wait for next week! I'm going to post my drawings each week and hope to see improvements as we go!

All drawing are in charcoal on A3 paper.

Drawing 1

Drawing 2

Drawing 3

Drawing 4

Liz Taylor (AHS)

Liz Taylor, 7 x 10 inches, watercolor, pencil and gouache, 2016.

A portrait of Liz Taylor from the TV series American Horror Story: Hotel, as played by Dennis O'Hare. It wasn't my favourite season of the show but Dennis was fabulous as Liz.

Pascal

"Pascal - Love Runs Through His Veins" by Asher Meekins, a vampire story for which I painted the cover, is now available for the Kindle from Amazon. A print version will be available soon...

Bathtime

Bathtime, watercolor and pencil, 8 x 11 inches, 2016.

Painted for the EBSQ "Go Figure" show. 

David Bowie 1947 - 2016

From Ziggy To Blackstar, watercolor and pencil, 2016.

Strider (Aragorn)

Strider, 21 x 27 cm, watercolor and pencil, 2015.

A painting of Strider or Aragorn as we later find out he is really called in The Lord Of The Rings novels. It was painted for the EBSQ "Inspired by Tolkien" show. I took inspiration from not only the book but also Tolkien's poem "Song Of Aragorn". My partner Mike posed for me :)