Figure Drawing

This has been a very busy week. I am back at school and we started figure drawing. It feels good to be standing at an easel and moving around instead of sitting. We are doing mostly short poses this week to warm us up and get into the rhythm. Figure drawing is a progression. We start with short one minute poses, move to 2, 3, and 5 minute poses and then a couple of 10 minute poses. Thursday afternoon we did a 2 1/2 hour pose ( the model poses for 20 minutes at a time before taking a short 5 minute break so a 2 1/2 hour pose is broken up into 20 minute segments with the model taking the same pose after each break). So here is what a one minute pose/sketch looks like:

The most important factor that must be found first is the gesture. Without a good depiction of the gesture, perfect proportions and detail would not be relevant. You would have a pretty picture but it would look stiff and not realistic. As one can imagine, we work hard at capturing gesture and it isn't easy, at least, not for me at this point!
Here is a 3 minute pose:

At this time, we are working with charcoal on newsprint. This next pose is a 5 minute pose and I am starting to put in shadow:

This final pose is in charcoal on Canson Mi Tientes charcoal paper and is the 2 1/2 hour pose. Notice there is still very little detail as at this time I was also working on getting the proportions right. That is still a challenge for me, specially with the human figure.

Friday afternoon we were back to construction drawing but now of plaster busts. A challenging and exciting week all around. I really do like figure drawing so far.
On the home front, I have a new easel and have had to make room in my little room for it. I have been going through boxes and bins cleaning out and shifting things around. Today I managed to convince my husband to pose for me over an hour to get a bit more figure sketching in, and try out the new easel of course! Next week will be interesting, exciting, and challenging too. Until then, -Renee