Life Drawing.. Who knew it would be sorta fun?
Hey guys, I'm back with a new post and this time I'll be chatting to you about a completely new and out of my comfort zone activity I did this week... as you probably have guessed by the title: LIFE DRAWING (and yes, you are thinking correctly, that is drawing naked people.) So before we begin (and I post my drawings ranging from disastrous to slightly looking like a human being) I want to clarify I am most definitely not an artist, nor do I think of myself as one, so just remember that as I talk about and post my embarrassing drawings all over the internet.
On this particular night I thought I would try something completely out of my comfort zone, so I brought a few pencils and a pad of A3 paper and headed along to Life Drawing. I had no expectations of myself, knowing I can't draw to save my life. We started with 4 three minute poses where the goal was to get as much detail down possible in those three minutes, as I've mentioned and will continue to mention throughout this blog post I have 0 art skills so of course with a few giggles and mutters of "what the hell have I gotten myself into" to my friend next to me, my first drawing of this model was laughable. But as you can see I progressively got better as the other 3 poses went on, I learnt to not stress so much about what it looks like and concentrate on where the shadows and the lines of the model were so I could eventually put it all together into a cohesive picture.
(Unfortunately the way I folded this piece of paper makes it hard to photograph)
This is the drawing I am most proud of, it's definitely better than my others from the night and I think it shows the eventual "getting" of what were actually trying to achieve throughout the class, to not just focus on getting the perfect drawing, but the shadow and light and the details that made up the model. (I can't draw faces)
With this pose I decided to have a bit of fun and play with the coloured pastels that were on offer This made drawing and creating infinitely more fun, and being able to use different colours for the darkness/shadows and the light that was being cast onto the model made it easier to visualise where I was going to put lines ect. Feeling my creative juices flowing and being able to just try without the fear of failure or the pressure of being perfect really helped me get into my groove and have fun. The tutor Lee was very supportive and was always around to offer knowledge or help in any way.
My last picture was again a bit of fun and trying new concepts. This was my attempt at drawing "negative space" around the model instead of actually drawing the lines to create the shape of the model. This one looks a bit creepy and the pose the model was in I found extremely hard to draw the negative space, so the picture ended up being lines AND negative space AND a whole lot of colours just for the thrill of it. Not a very good drawing but fun all the same, loved getting my fingers messy and figuring out how to blend and shade the colours.
Overall I think this is a great opportunity to have some fun, try out something you would never usually do and do something creative. I left this workshop feeling proud of what I had achieved and ready to improve next time I went. I've never ever thought that I was a creative person but I came away from this with a confident boost that you don't have to be "creative" to try something new. Art is fun, and should be enjoyed and appreciated by everyone, regardless of talent. Thanks so much for reading.
I hope I've inspired you to try something new, even if you feel as though you are the least creative person on the planet. It's all in the eye of the beholder. Hayley x