Live Drawing Live - my results and conclusions

I have to say Life Drawing Live flew by yesterday and the two hours were up in not time at all.

You can see my results below with some quickie comments from me.

Live Drawing Live - The programme on BBC4

Here's what I think about the programme. In summary.......

Shows promise if technologically challenged. Could do better.

• good tutors - and nice to be able to see Daphne and Lachlan in a tutorial role rather than as Judges. I'd banged on at length about how the BBC needs to stop creating "gameshows for artists" and start focusing on its remit to educate as well as entertain and this went a long way to doing that
• a bit like the Iowa Caucus one had the distinct impression they'd not tested all the link ups and technology before the show - except in isolation. When it came to bending under the pressure of real life and people sending in drawings the system crashed. 
• Something went wrong with the curation of images. I need to watch it back but it seems to me as if the bulk of the images were coming from the various studios set up around the UK rather than from genuine images from the public who were al sat in front of their TVs EXCEPT
• you couldn't draw yourself unless you had an extra feed which allowed you access to Pose Cam - and where was the access to information about that prior to the programme?

BUT THE BIG ONE was

• you couldn't watch the TV and draw at the same time and process your drawings to email them in.....

So I drew from my Pose Cam on my iPad Pro with the audio off and watched the TV - but mainly listened to it.

As somebody pointed out it might have been better to do it the other way round and have Pose Cam on your big screen and the programme on your tablet.

The one thing I regret not doing is screen dumping the poses so I could have another go within the same timescales.

PS IMO Diane Ali still can't draw..... I stopped watching after her hands.

The programme is available on iPlayer for the next 28=9 days - but I'm unclear whether or not the Pose Cam will work given it was all live. Obviously you can ignore all the stuff about processing your drawings and sending them in.

My drawings

I haven't done any life drawings in ages, had just got in from the Pastel Society Private View and could barely move at all due to the problems with osteoarthritis and three pieces of bone fragments floating around in my ankle.

So the notion of trying to find a range of things to draw with was out and, having got in at five to 8 o'clock I just grabbed the nearest A3 drawing pad and a graphite stick.

Below (and above) is what I produced.

During the first pose with the chap I was trying to work out what I needed to do to access Pose Cam i.e.

• remember/find my BBC account login name and password
• find the right website URL (where was the prompt running along the bottom of the picture when you needed it?)
• then had to work out to get Pose Cam going.....
• which left me with 5 minutes for the hands and feet pose

I did think more than once that it would have been nice to have had more notice of this. I crawled all over the web on Friday before writing Views about the Nude and Life Drawing Live - on BBC next week and I saw absolutely nothing about Pose Cam and the need to log in!

The second quickie at the beginning

The next one was supposed to be about covering the paper with charcoal and then erasing and drawing back in the charcoal to create . three tone drawing.

Which is find but I didn't have any charcoal to hand and I don't normally work with it when sat in my living room! So I focused on tones and just used it as another drawing a nude exercise.

The next pose (I think) was the one where everything is out of proportion because of the angle we are viewing from - which you can above. I think I drew the feet a bit too small and the right arm as you look at it is a tad too long.

The Tonal Standing Pose - which I couldn't do  properly as I had no charcoal to hand

 The next exercise was about drawing two people who have adopted the pose of two people in a classical painting - and I forget which.

Double Portrait at the end

This was the "longer pose" you get at the end of a session - and I liked some of the points suggested by the tutors for how to get it right

• using the horizontals and verticals behind them to measure out relativities for different parts of the two bodies
• using the negative space concept to work out how close the two bodies needed to be. I think I got mine more or less right
• using the platform they were on to also help them measure out length and get parts of the anatomy placed correctly. 

I must confess these are all the lessons I learned long go and was using to draw the set up.

There's something wrong with the chap and I couldn't quite work out what other than it something to do with the right arm as we look at it.

Later tonight I'll put links in below to all my other posts about Life Drawing - and my guide to Life Class.