komatsu

Hip ‘n’ thigh

Apparently the term ‘leg’ refers to the stuff going on from the knee downwards. The stuff that happens above is the thigh. Along with this nugget of information I also discovered where the groin area is. I am still quite startled just how much I don’t actually know which I reckon is common knowledge to the majority. Hey ho. So Friday was all about the hip and leg area - very interesting once again and I had a moment of wonder and appreciation: the body is amazing and it’s crazy how some DNA can make all these bones, tendons, muscles and organs grow in the right place and fit together from…well, not very much. Not the most eloquent way of putting it, I know - but it’s crazily impressive. On the drawing side of things - my drawing seemed to do a Giacometti and just shrink and shrink until I had something tiny on my page and what was described by one of my fellow students as ‘cute’…

Shape and shading

Although this class was about focusing on the thumb we actually worked more on shading etc. Our teacher, Brendan has been trying to instill in us a way of drawing that makes sense in principle to me but for some reason, I find incredibly hard to put into practice. Basically the idea is to start off with the simplest shape before you and subdivide that until you have something of complexity and feeling of form. This week this principle expanded to shading - find the main mid-tone and then sub-divide that into light and dark areas etc. and just keep going in that fashion. This is rather good for me as I am useless at finding, and thus achieving subtle mid-tones in my drawings. I also ‘fluff around’ in my drawings when really I should be looking for the definite shapes of tone that describe the surface etc. So this was a good exercise for me. And after weeks of producing lack-lustre drawings I was actually quite pleased with this one. Bonus time.

Hand

Another frustrating drawing - this time the hand. It was great though - learning about the crazy intricacy of the hand and discovering to my shame, what I had previously before assumed were some fine bones, were in fact, super impressive tendons etc. On the drawing side of things I managed to let myself get bogged down in pointless stuff so that I essentially just ‘fidgeted’ my way through the drawing. Ears low and frustrations high after this anatomy class…

Back log

Haven’t been that organised recently so playing catch-up. Truth is that ego interfered - I went through a spate of producing useless drawings which rather took the enthusiasm off posting them up to here. But with the ego now in check here are some rather below par drawings. This one was from a class focusing on the shoulder/arm and as you can see I spent a jolly old time doing everything but the intended area…Jolly weak work indeed generally.

Drawing in darkness

I was in two minds about posting these…not entirely successful drawings. Hey ho. Des was away so we had this other rather cool guy called George. We did some quick 4 minute poses to warm ourselves up (one example below middle) and then worked for the remaining one and a half hours on this drawing below. It got crazily dark in the studio so that when we finally put some lights on the full horror of my drawing was revealed with only 20 minutes left to redeem it in some way. Also the model was coughing and scratching and moved in and out of the pose constantly - so that I found myself scrambling after the pose and changing and changing and changing. I ended up having hysterics (laughing, that is - not losing my rag) as we all looked around to one another in a rather exasperated manner.

On Fridays I do an anatomy class at the art school too - each week we focus on a different part of the body, learning about the bones and muscles that are behind the mechanics and then spend the afternoon drawing from the model. It’s all very interesting but my drawings don’t seem to ever be that successful. Anyway - here’s a bit out of my sketchbook showing work we did covering the torso and the shoulder/top arm section.

b o t t o m

Was a bit late to life class and for my punishment had a duff position that no one wanted - ie: behind the model. Was a bit flustered so initial 20 minute drawing wasn’t great and generally felt a bit antsy after a pants drawing session last Friday which left my self-confidence shaky (it doesn’t take much). However after that Des (our tutor) set us the task to create a tonal drawing by covering the page with charcoal and working into that - rubbing away and laying on more black. It was actually rather enjoyable and I ended up with a great view of the model which was rather happy-making.

Tuesday life class

I started life-drawing classes last week at an art school handily down my street. Have to say I absolutely love it. This week it was all about mass - trying to get the feeling of the weight in the pose. This drawing was the main pose - taking 1hr 15mins approx. I think and the one below it was just a warm-up 20 minute one.

More pigs…

Pig recipe map

This would fold up into a grid of 3×3 squares with the berkshire pig as the ‘front page’ and depending which part of the pig you fancied cooking up you would unfold it in the direction of the arrows. I like the idea of maps - helping you find out where you are, allowing you to fold them to your needs, or just laying them out full to get the overview. Recipe books, especially paperbacks are notoriously hard to hold open - i end up useing cans of baked beans etc. to weight it down and hold my place (no fancy lectern devices in my ownership sadly). This map layout is the alternative..

.

Alphabet breakdown of the front page of Saturday’s Guardian

Not sure where this is heading but currently doing the rather arduous task of breaking down the front page of last week’s Saturday Guardian into it’s component letters. A kind of switching off style sheet… Just can’t work out how I want to present the results and why. However I have much time to contemplate the matter as there is still the rather scary amounts of body text to cut up and organise first.

The body text is making me wonder if it is worth it…still not sure where it is heading. Inspiration please hit me.

Some recent revisions

Sausage Tree

Took a few revisions but happy enough with this result to leave it alone and get on with developing other stuff…

Tools I use, used to use, and want to use in the future in my work

- Venn diagram to investigate the relationship of the tools I use and want to use in my work

2nd revision of this too. Mucked up the first one by adding the colour in the circles and then adding text rather sloppily at the bottom. This one is more refined on the colour side of things - I’ve used ‘pointillist’ felt-tip for the circles this time which i quite like although i would have like the contrast of the colours to show up more. Now pondering on the type I am going to put on the bottom. But not worrying too much about it for now.