It’s been about a month since we had our final weekly virtual life drawing session. So I wish to dedicate this week’s journal entry to discussing my progress during these classes, as I haven’t really mentioned them in my other posts.
Having life drawing this semester was a game changer. Whereas in first semester I used my day and a half in the studio to keep me grounded, it was a lot harder to have a structure this time around. However, having these classes, more than anything else, really helped me stay focused and actually feel like I am in art school.
I’ll be honest, I have been really frustrated with the lack of classes offered in this course, so when I found out about these I was ecstatic. I had done some online life drawing in the past, but never on a regular basis. So I feel like attending these every week has really helped me progress and develop a more critical eye to life drawing. Alex Roberts has been an incredible teacher all throughout this, sharing her intelligence and honesty with us and making the lack of in person classes a lot less miserable than it could have been! I actually had a drawing surgery with her a weeks with her a couple weeks before out last class - funnily enough Jaeden was the only other person to attend that session, so it slowly became part couples art therapy...) which further helped me think critically of my work. In this post, I feature a variety of work from these sessions - in each section, I have put them in roughly chronological order.
I’d say I am naturally more inclined to working in tone than line. I feel like I have progressed a lot in my use of tone, which I partly accredit to life drawing. That being said, I would like to focus more on tone in the future, especially in order to better capture mid tones.
I also made an active effort to focus more on quality of line. I have really enjoyed doing a initial sketch in light pencil and then going over with a single line. It‘s helped me build confidence in trusting my eye and I am eager to continue working this way in the future.
In other works, there is more a combination of line and tone. In the future, I would like to find that balance
We also tested out different techniques that I really enjoyed. I found that using ink on the end of a stick was extremelty useful in playing with both tone and line. Collage was also great at allowing me to decompose tone.
I have discussed with my flatmate Eleanor about doing weekly life drawings on Tuesdays - the day we had the VLD with Alex. This would be really helpful to giving our time this Summer some more structure and to keep the practice going. I would like to draw at least once every day as of the deadline, something I should have been doing this semester. I also really want to improve at life drawing as it is something that I feel could nourish the rest of my practice as it offers itself to a lot of experimentation (which is something I am often too afraid of).
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