May Show and Tell - Life Drawing

It's Monday the 6th of May and we have a very reasonable attendance of six members for our monthly ”show n tell” session in our Dewsbury studio.

Jane had previously suggested we discuss our life drawings and we were all looking for feedback and a glimpse of other artists’ perceptions of our paintings and studied pieces.

Before we got on to actual life drawings Jean gave us a really interesting demonstration of how useful the drawing app is on the i pad pro. The basic app is free with adequate tools and paint colour choices to produce line drawings or paintings and mixed media compositions. These can be saved and printed and there is opportunity to expand its capability by purchasing extra colours and tools. One of its advantages is that, for artists on the move, it does away with hauling around numerous amounts of paper, pens, paints and the whole kit and caboodle we often think is necessary in order to capture an image.

We then looked at the drawings we had each brought, and although we were already aware of this, it was clear to see that each artist has their own unique style and approach to drawing. The group agreed that we do not have a “house style”, We admired the diversity in styles of the life drawing group and are interested in pursuing new ways of thinking about the drawing processes. Christine remarked that, as a relatively newcomer to life drawing, she found it easy and comfortable to join and be part of this group who easily share such a wide variety of approaches to using materials and methods.

There was much food for thought as we mulled over topics like, a composition of multiple poses, drawing directly over the previous image; preparing the surface to be drawn on with collage, taking risks and having a suggested starting point. Hence it was suggested that a list of prompts might be useful for us to choose from at future sessions. The prompts included “blind drawing” which is constantly focusing on the model and never looking at the drawing surface for the duration of a short pose; drawing with the non dominant hand and drawing without taking the pen or pencil off the paper. There was also a discussion about how we could look at ways of moving the group forward.

From my point of view, although I always find these meetings helpful, I thought it was one of the most supportive show and tells so far. Perhaps that could be because it was specific to a subject matter, in this case life drawing.

As can be seen from the photos, simple pencil drawings have as much impact as a more complicated mixed media image. It was interesting to see how members were surprised by other artists’ positive feedback and impressions of their work, especially when they had seen their own pieces as unsuccessful. To quote Robbie Burns “O, wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us”. Can we adopt that as a motto for the future?