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I thought I’d use ink for this one so that I could get broad strokes to show the tonal values within the ten minute sits, I think that was a good decision in so much as that aspect worked and I learnt a lot about working with colour within ink but I don’t really like many of the drawings. What I’d really like is another ten minutes on each to finish the drawings with dip-pen! The first two I didn’t fit the figure on the paper, I played with bold colours which was fun but they look incredibly wooden – the weight isn’t there at all and I wonder if it’s partly feeling cramped by the paper, though it may also just be that I needed to warm up! I didn’t really like the white background with these colours, it would be fun to rework them and add more colour.

I looked at these again the next day and on the second image I did really like the brush strokes but the head and hand don’t connect as they should – I tried cropping the image and I really like what it became.

This next one has a pinkish underneath, I allowed the ink on the brush from the previous exercise to carry through to see how that worked as the first wash and found the different colour quite useful for contrast but pink and black is such a naff colour combination it’s completely off-putting! The proportions are good until it comes to the head which is way too small, and I think the weight is good, but it’s not my bag.

I tried viewing the image in black and white so that I can see what the mark-making is like without being distracted by the colour – I like it a lot more like this but the head still seems too small!

This one I did in brown and found that the brown ink reacts quite differently with the water – like there are too many pigments in there, they start fizzing and separating. I thought as I was doing it that this would cock up the whole picture but actually it’s one of my favourites. It feels more three dimensional than the others and the proportions are good.

again I found it useful to view it in black and white just so I could see it without any colour bias and look at the brush strokes themselves.

Thinking that the brown hadn’t worked I tried using a light brown wash but following with black for this one, I really hate the combination. the top of the drawing has some really nice marks but the bottom half is terrible and there’s no weight or body to it. The proportions are good apart from the feet which seem to cock up the whole thing!

Tried viewing in black and white again and I cropped to see how that looks, much improved – I think for ink I’ll stick to bold colours or good old fashioned black and white from here on in!

Put off by my attempts in colour I stuck with watered down black for the last pose. Tonal variation isn’t great as there wasn’t time for the layers to dry between coats so it couldn’t build up depth but I actually really like this all the same. I think there is more body and life to it and you can feel the weight even if the details aren’t so visible.

This was really welcome after the quick sketches; generally quick poses are my favourite but I’m still finding my way with ink and wanted to play around with building layers.

I decided for this one to try just using brush and watered down ink (over a charcoal sketch) – I’m looking forward to adding dip pen but wanted to see how it works without that element first.

Overall I’m pleased with how this turned out, I think it’s quite a sensitive study and has a nice sense of stillness and peace appropriate to the subject matter. I think where it falls down is probably the hands – they’re actually much better hands than I usually manage but they’re both on the small side making both of the arms disproportionate too! The foot looks way too small too so they’re things to watch out for next time. I like the composition as a whole though and building layers worked nicely to give a three-dimensionality and sense of light and shade to the body.

I’ve been so looking forward to getting into this part of the course, and particularly exercises like this. There’s nothing I like more than life drawing and the quicker studies are my favourite! These were all done with the model in the same position.

First we were asked to do 5 two minute sketches using charcoal or graphite, I chose charcoal.

I then re-read it and realised it was asking us to draw with as few lines as possible so I went a bit more minimal!

Next was 2x ten minute sketches:

Then we were recommended to try working from a different position and in different media. I worked first in ink, then conte and then oil pastel.

Of all of these sketches I think my favourites are the slightly more minimal 2 minute charcoal sketches, but I also really like the ink.. I actually quite like all of the charcoals but I think with the ten minute sketches I’m less free with my drawing and it possibly suffers for that, though it gives them another quality which I do quite like – something smoother and a bit more blocky – I vaguely had picasso nudes in mind as I was drawing.

The proportions differ marginally from picture to picture but not by a great deal and certainly as I progress the difference becomes less so. The foreshortening on the left leg looks off in some of them but it looked a bit odd from that perspective in real life so I’m not too worried about that! I did really enjoy getting down the basic shapes in the more minimal charcoal nd ink sketches – finding that sometimes lines that are barely apparent in real life are integral to the weight of the pose and so play a bigger role on paper.

I really enjoyed this exercise, it seems like such an obvious thing to do but for some reason I’d never gone out to draw statues. I’d like to make a habit of it and  spend some time in the V&A drawing their collections, but for this exercise I took a sunny weekend and walked around London drawing at my leisure and it was lovely. I looked for statues that showed movement – I find them much more interesting – and tried to vary my styles to see how best to capture them. Here are a few of my drawings in conte and pencil, the first page of drawings were all 10-15 minute sketches and the last drawing (A3) was a longer sketch – more like 30 or 40 minutes. I used to draw in pencil like that all the time and I don’t so much any more so it was quite nice to revisit it. I quite like how the detail shows through the mass of lines but it doesn’t capture the tension in his body as successfully as the sculptor was able to. I also really liked trying a completely new style of drawing (bottom left of first page) drawing the outlines of shadows and then shading them – could be one to return to in the next part of the course.

For this exercise I took the pen and ink sketch from Bishops Castle and did an A3 study in conte and wash using black, dark brown and burnt sienna. I can’t tell if I like it or not, I  keep looking at it and each time I feel differently. I think I was successful in creating a sense of depth and I really like the brush strokes and how the water has affected the conte – I wanted to retain some of the simplicity of style which I have done but with that I find that sometimes I look at it and it just looks a bit too basic.

For this exercise I worked again on my parents’ home town of Bishop’s Castle. It’s a town on a steep hill full of ancient and very wonky buildings so lots of fun to draw! This drawing is of the high street and includes their house. I drew it over two A3 pages, first in pencil and then in pen. I’m not sure I really like the drawing style – it’s a bit too controlled and lacking in life but It was interesting to do a drawing in this format focusing more on the details of the scene. It gives it something of what I liked about Durer’s paintings – total simplicity in just recording what is in front of you.

For this exercise I spent a couple of days in my parents’ home town of Bishops Castle. They’ve only recently moved there but it’s a town I spent a lot of time in during my teenage years so I feel a great warmth and connection to it. I tried to vary the media I used and some were more successful than others – here are a few that came out reasonably well.

This last picture is the one I was most pleased with. I’m so enjoying dip-pen and wash and something about the very simple wash and the car in particular seems to have worked particularly well. I often found myself wishing there weren’t any cars so that I could focus on the buildings but they are very much part of the scene so it was nice to have that aspect work.