A few sketches from last night...Last night I went to a Life Drawing Marathon for the first time in my life! A friend invited me, and I was excited to experience this (to me) rather new concept, which apparently this school arranges once a year. We car pooled to the town of Struer, and were in place just before 7 pm.
The idea was that we were to draw from 7pm - 1am. With breaks, naturally (for our sake, but especially for the models!) I have not done life drawing since the end of the last century, (literally!) when I joined a class in Newmarket, England.
I have always enjoyed it, and was excited to do it again. It is excellent training, you are forced to look and pay attention. And do it very quickly.
We started out with a few 30 second poses, and it took me a little while to get a kind of feel for it again, after all this time. To get the sense of the pencil in my hand and the body lines. First model was a young, fairly curvy woman. We moved up to one minute poses, two, three, four and as the most five. I was working away, the minutes went by and the quick sketches collected on the floor. The second model of the evening was a tall, very skinny man, and it was interesting how long it took me to understand this entire change in the subject. My 30 second pose sketches were barely existing - only straight lines on the big sheet of paper. But as it went on, I did get better. A little better. Although I don’t think I worked as smoothly as it did with the woman.
By 10, it was time for our main break. We gathered around the table, ate soup, had a chat and a glass of wine. Afterward, it was time for the last model of the night: an older man, who very creatively brought a book, ball and a bottle into his poses. I’d say he was the best of the bunch to change up his poses, not one was remotely the same. As an extra finesse and bonus, a trio had showed up during our brake, and they sang and played music while we worked, the rest of the evening.
The last half an hour I thought was rough! I was really, really, really tired (the wine probably didn’t help!) I found myself easing down, I put my pencil and paper on the floor, leaned back, and just listened to the music. By 1 am, we were of of there, and had about half an hour drive home.
I believe I slept the minute my head hit the pillow. But I kept on drawing in my dreams...
