Shamefully, I have not done any life drawing in years- I wish it was included in our course. However, for this project, perhaps because the costumes are more 'experimental', I want to build-on the shape of the human form as my starting-point, really work back form the very basics, so I have been looking into Life Drawing classes to get my drawing-skills and my understanding of the human form back on track. I intend to keep this up through-out the next term or so, as I feel its important to make the use of the university facilities whilst I still can.
So today I went to the extra-curricular Life Drawing sessions run weekly on campus, paid a pound (which for 2 hours, is pretty great), and started to draw. I was so embarrassed at how rusty I was, I hadn't quite realised how long it had been. Because I wanted to generate some experiments for my sketchbook, I tried to work smaller than I would naturally (and have before) so swapped my traditional A1 sheet for a variety of A3 grounds. For the first hour I really struggled, the model kept on doing 2-min poses, which I used to be fine with, but I think the combination of working at a scale I wasn't entirely comfortable with, the fact that I was embarrassed about my lack of skill whilst surrounded by Fine Art and Animation students, and the fact that it has been a good few years since I've done proper life drawing, meant that I found it difficult to do anything more than a few sparing marks on the paper. I kept everything I did, even if some of it was just some unreadable lines. After the first hour, the model moved onto a few more extended poses, about 15mins, this was good for me as it gave me time to get a sense of proportion but also realise a drawing. My drawings are absolutely terrible, I felt very self-conscious, but I'm there to improve, so I'm trying not to get too intimidated by everyone else's skill. It has really driven-home to me that you need to practise a skill if you want to remain adept at it, and having completed an NCFE in Life Drawing when I was 17, I wish I had carried on with it on a regular basis, then I would be amazing now.
This has now made me worried about the realisation of my 'final designs', as I have been determined to work as much as possible without my usual reliance on the electronic aids of Photoshop and its brethren. I was really looking forward to getting back to painting, as it definitely used to be my strongest creative field- especially portraiture on a large scale, but now I've seen how much my Life Drawing has deteriorated, I'm worried that my painting skills (which I haven't touched-on for almost 4 years) will have also deteriorated at the same rate!! Not only this, but as with the life drawing, I am used to painting A1 or larger and am worried about trying to do 8 or so designs on a scale that I can actually work with.
Maybe I'll cross this bridge when I come to it.
Anyway, below is an example of one of my drawing from tonight, I hope we have a woman next week.
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