Tuesday, February 19, 2008

In which we talk about drawing.


Last night I had my first introduction into life drawing. It was on an assigment for the usual paper but this time the art school were delighted by the idea of having a journalist there and were extremely helpful.

The school was in Shoreditch which always has a special place in my heart, so many amusing adventures started off in there. I often walk around a corner and discover a pub that I'm sure I've never been to but strangely I seem to have a memory of talking to a girl in a tiny hat.

It was foggy so the tall buildings of the east end had a marvellous sense of menace to them, it was as if at any moment a devilish jack the ripper type would step out of the shadows and try and set about me with a knife. Luckily this didn't happen and my journey was without incident.

The class was very entertaining, sadly the model was male and he kept positioning himself so that I'd have to spend a lot of time drawing his winky. I've never drawn another man's winky before but now I have a whole catalogue of sketches of it. I'm not to sure I should show them to other people, there are a couple of other good drawings - I managed to do his feet quite well and capture the line of his shoulders but even they are on a page with other winky sketches.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it. The art students were very amusing with a massive sense of their own self importance and ability which caused the poor teacher to have to work quite hard to get them to accept any sort of advice to improve their work. One of the chaps resisted for what must have been twenty minutes saying his style was more conceptual.

The experience was very engaging it's amazing how you really look at people drawing life drawing, so that you forget everything else. I can't wait to go again.

No comments: