Drawing Class 8th June

Studio 4 at the Princes Drawing School is on the top floor of an old commercial building in Charlotte Street on the Shoreditch/Hoxton borders. The top floor sits above its neighbours and consequently we have excellent light in the summer months and, naturally, it also changes as the session passes! I was very conscious while drawing last night of the fact that some of the drawing problems I was encountering are exactly the same as those I get when drawing outside!

Drawing in pencil is "good for me" as it makes me look at the tonal value of different local colours. His shirt was dark blue and yet parts of it were lighter than the tonal value of the rear wall which is a light creamy colour. The colour of the male model's hair is a little lighter than that of the female model and yet the lighting and background context for each made them dramatically different. I quite liked the light on dark of his head contrasting with the dark on light of hers and wish I could remember the technical term for this which is one I have a mental blank about and can never ever remember!

The duality theme of the two models in the studio develops each week and I'm always very conscious of trying to compose a picture in a different way. It always seems to work better in portrait mode and when the focus is just on the two models. I'm also getting into trying to portray a relatioonship between the two models although none obviously exists. This week I found the marked contrast between the broad back of a not insubstantial male model towering over a rather slim female figure with a fine bone structure too powerful to ignore.

Last night I also found that a question which was posed by one of the students in my sketching class stayed with me. How do I know which way to hatch? I found myself watching what I was doing as I drew........but I'm going to write about this in a future post as I'm now dashing off to see two exhibitions in town - and tomorrow is Drawing Day with the SGFA at the Natural History Museum.

This drawing from yesterday's Drawing Class is on A2 size heavy white cartridge paper with a mechanical pencil HB 0.5mm. It took about two hours to do. I've cropped it down to the area I was focused on while drawing - which is about 21" x 15".

Technorati tags: art , drawing , drawing class, drawing people , portrait , pencil