Today was the January RE-Drawing Masculinity workshop so I spent the afternoon working on timed gesture drawing. We warmed up with 2- and 3-minute poses, and of course those were Not Great, but then warmups aren't necessarily supposed to be. A few of them came out all right, and the best of them are included later in this post. We followed the warmup with two 10-minute poses and to 20-minute poses. The 20-minute poses were odd for me - I am used to running out of time, and the 20-minute schedule afforded me time to look back and try to find trouble spots and in some cases even fix those trouble spots haha.
Here is my 20-minute sketch of Paul:
I think I could profitably do more work on his head, which seems a bit small, and his face could use more detail; however, I am really pleased with the arms and legs, and happy enough with his torso: I like that you can kind of see the way gravity affects his core as he leans on the couch.
And here is my 20-minute sketch of Briden:
Again, the head may be disproportionate - or perhaps it's just his neck being a bit too long? - and the face could certainly use some more detail. This pose presented some foreshortening challenges, and I tried to keep those in mind, but I think his left leg (the one on our right) looks shorter than his right leg, so I have to get some practice in with that sort of perspective. Proportions aside, I like the way his feet came out.
Here's my 10-minute sketch of Briden:
This month, again, the two models posed separately and asked us to sketch them into the same image. Here are Briden and Paul, posing in separate Zoom frames, concatenated into a single image:
I believe I am the only participant who opted to have Briden tickling Paul's head. Ahem.
I love this workshop, because it's so joyful and playful, but I still get practice with difficult techniques. I think of my art-major friends in college many many years ago, in tears after a critique. I'm sure I would benefit from a stricter critique, but who needs the kind of meanness that results in weeping.
And that puts a wrap on January. Wishing you all a prosperous and joyful February!
Thanks for looking at my pictures!
