Proportional Misrepresentation: Life Drawing part 1

Having finally got round to becoming a member of St Ives School of Painting, I really had no excuse to avoid life class any longer, and attended my first one last night. Arriving early, I had plenty of time to fiddle with easel, chair and trolley to find the best working position for the A3 sketchbook I had brought with me for a first go, as well as chatting to one or two of the other people there. I had packed a varied selection of media to use and opted to start with sanguine conte.

As the tutor rightly pointed out, I drew the shoulders too wide, and the arms too short in relation to each other. Actually I was relieved to have produced a humanoid shape, however inaccurate, as I consider myself to be particularly weak in drawing people and had fallen back on the line and negative shape exercises I have been working with on the still life assignments.

I changed to charcoal and attempted to model the form in tone, not easy as the fluorescent overhead lighting limited the amount of shadow/light contrast.

Although I caught the slope of the shoulders correctly, the width of the further collarbone is too great, and the upper arm too narrow. I had problems also with the foreshortened hand resting on the knee, and in hindsight I think the size of the head may be on the small side.

The next pose, standing this time, went from bad to worse. I concentrated too much on trying to catch the twist of the body and made the legs far too short. Once again the tutor came to my rescue and showed me that the head-to-navel should be equal to the navel-to-feet measurement.



I attempted to correct the lenght of the legs (the original foot position can be seen) but the size of the head is too big- it only divides by five and a half times into the body.

For the fourth pose I opted to use a 6B pencil, and the reclining shape proved much easier to get to grips with, although I had to carefully consider the size of the nearest foot.

Overall I thought this was far more successful, although possibly the lower buttock is a little too rounded where it meets the podium surface.

We stopped for a tea break which gave me the opportunity to see some of what other people had been doing. One lady, an art teacher preparing for a project on movement relating to the Degas exhibition, had been working in neocolor, and the medium showed a really nice texture in her studies. The man next to me (I recognised him as an artist working in town) had inks set out, and I asked him what he was making marks with; they proved to be long thin willow sticks trimmed to either a point or nib, with which he was exploring the amount of control and unpredictability in the marks made.



After our break, the next pose was particularly challenging from where I was sat, and I found myself failing to observe the relative positions of feet and chair. I also omitted the right hand, as I ran out of time while attempting to correct the feet.

When faced with another standing pose, I attempted to construct a box and grid to ensure the shape fitted, however I still went wrong on the top half/bottom half split. I'm not sure whether my eye was thrown by looking up at the model, as she was on a surface a foot above the floor and I was seated. I've made a note to myself to try at least a couple of poses next week while standing at the easel.

For the final pose, I had turned the page and was preparing to start when a loose sheet of black paper fell out of my book, so I changed to white conte and concentrated on a tonal study (in negative). This I felt was the most successful of all my attempts this evening, and was a good motivation to return next week.

I enjoyed the class much more than I had expected. Most of the poses were 10 minutes, except for the reclining one which was held for 15 minutes, so it really forced me to concentrate on getting the likeness down (although without the panic which ensues when given only 5 or less minutes). The class tutor circulates frequently and offers helpful comments where needed; I had had the opportunity to tell him of my reasons for attending and that it was my first ever experience of drawing the nude. I'm rather looking forward to next week, although I need to make some reference notes about anatomical proportion and try to bear these in mind while I draw.

 On this first visit, I deliberately chose only to use my sketchbook while I adjusted to being outside my comfort zone in a completely new envirionment. Next time I will be working for at least some of the time on larger paper, and I may take a wider selection of media with me to experiment with, such as pastel pencils and oil crayon.