Figure study

Otherwise known as 'life drawing' - which I think is just SUCH the wrong word to describe it.

There hasn't been much update on college work since last week as it's been spent mostly on research around the two briefs I'm about to embark on. Somehow it's transpired that I'm going to be doing quite a lot of figurative work - dancers - with both briefs. It's good as I'm very immersed in the subject matter, but it is also very 'bad' because drawing people, especially conveying movement, is something I feel I can't do and am incredibly scared of. Having talked through my ideas for the briefs with the tutors during our first ever tutorial this week, we decided that tackling this fear head on and getting used to it now would be the best thing to do. As an in-road to this I've started doing some life drawing.

The college has an on-going life drawing session on Thursdays with two models - turn up with whatever media you like, and just get on with it! It's not a taught class, just a facility for use by the art students. So off I went this morning - and spent 2 hours there.

Two things I noticed - I'm a line drawer. That's what I love and am good at. I really struggled when I tried to do form and shade. Obviously something I'm going to have to work on. The other thing was this feeling of "what am I doing drawing? I should be doing some real work!", and it's been like this all the while. I'm still finding it hard adjusting to the fact that I'm doing a degree where I'm supposed to draw all day. Blimey! How did I manage to end up here?!?!

Click on the picture to enlarge and see more of what I drew today. This is about half the work as I got bored after scanning this half in!