One hour pose. Would have liked to finish but not a bad way to spend some time.
Manifest Drawing Center marathon this past weekend. 11-hour pose, graphite. Great model. Great time! Click here for link to Manifest Gallery site.
2-day drawing marathon at Manifest Drawing Center
Manifest is a creative research gallery and drawing center in Cincinnati. They offer excellent workshops and provide weekly life drawing sessions as well as a monthly life drawing marathon. Check out their exhibition schedule, publications, workshops and all they have to offer.
The following drawing is from one of the weekend marathon drawing sessions I attended. The beauty of this opportunity is that the model holds this pose for two days offering the artist a more in-depth study than typical group life drawing sessions.
Quote
“Great things are only done in art when the creative instinct of the artist has a well-organized executive faculty at its disposal.” - Harold Speed, The Practice & Science of Drawing
(Another short pose, wipe-out drawing.)
For thinking out loud
If every moment spent in the studio is considered “precious” and rare, the product of each moment spent is then expected to be of excellence. That allows no time or space for improvisation. Improv is when real art happens: when skill and the freedom to get lost (and perhaps fail) meet and create.
This pose was a 30-minute, charcoal starting with the wipe-out method to quickly establish lights and darks.
Share your tips and tricks to get started in your studio. Sometimes simply getting started is the hardest part.
Successful short drawings
Quote
“Over-modeling destroys the effectiveness of the picture.” - Max Doerner in The Materials of the Artist and Their Use in Painting.
In the spirit of this quote, especially during figure drawing sessions, I try to walk away with at least one drawing that can stand on its own as a finished piece. By finished I mean a complete statement that when viewed can be taken on its own and where the eye does not need any more information to process the image and expression as a whole. The character of each drawing can be quite different from works that take many, long sessions to complete. This pose was 45 minutes so quick, decisive first strokes that communicate immediacy and freshness are key. I try to put aside any conscious academic steps and simply go for it. Of course, this is when all the tedious exercises spent rendering hopefully kick in: where instinct and practice work together. Given days to work on a single pose, an artist can afford to spend much time in each phase of drawing from initial block-in, gestural considerations, comparative measuring, rendering tone and refinement.
My studio work involves paintings that I work on over long stretches of time where I continually return session after session and refine and rework whatever needs attention at that moment. Figure drawing sessions are a refreshing break from this on-going rhythm of work and walking away with a piece that is complete in and of itself is most gratifying.
