Books

• Royal Drawing School Ways of Drawing: Artists’ Perspectives and Practices (Thames & Hudson, 2019)
• Downs, S et al Drawing Between the Lines of Now: Contemporary Art (I B Taurus, 2007)
• Malbert, R Drawing People: The Human Figure in Contemporary Art (D.A.P., 2015)
• Gayford, M How Painting Happens and Why it Matters (Thames & Hudson, 2024)
• Simblet, S Anatomy for the Artist (DK, 2020)
• Godfrey, T Drawing Today (Phaidon, 1990)

My goals for the course: trying to catch the line, focus on proportions. Using rough measuring techniques – vertical lines, centre of balance, plotting distance of widest points of the pose. Too intricate a calculation confuses me and stops me noticing. Trying not to run out of space and lose the feet (or the head). Perspective important – checking angles at arms length with the pencil or stick – and ensuring anatomical correctness (eg could the model move/would the angles be impossible unless serious deformity? Assessing critically how out of scale or anatomically impossible after each session. Experimenting mostly with fine lines and contrasting with more definite mark making, trying to find what suits me. Experimenting with using line with minimal shading to create form/volume. Following through on learning to control of line quickly ie acquiring confidence in seeing/looking and translating through the hand. Observing analytically and drawing should follow.

I used basic comparative measuring techniques ie how many heads in the total length and plotted roughly where the widest and highest points of the figure are on the page. To do it properly takes too long and I’ve never had the chance of a pose longer that 25 minutes maximum – quite limiting. So lots of mistakes until I get enough experience to get my eye in properly.

Feeling that the head/neck/face a whole separate problem needing to be tackled as an area in itself so making no attempt to include it in the figures for the time being.

Exploring lines of motion

Find myself using something something thick, chunky, dark. Liking the feel of moving whole arm to connect with the paper and not looking at the surface too much. Quick means 10 minutes or less.

A3, Conte crayon, 10 minutes. The figure here was not moving but I liked the idea she could have been when repeated. Not quite a line of action technique but the focus was on catching the body’s direction in the pose ie not perpendicular.

Went to Eric Robertson Bequest exhibition at Gracefield Arts Centre and admired very much the confidence of the line and aliveness of an Anthony Caro drawing.

Anthony Caro, Reclining Nude (1987), lithograph

A2, 10 mins, Conte pierre noir pencil

I like the simplicity and the ambiguity of this piece and it not being at first clear whether it is either a front or back view of the subject. Unfortunately, my best line and the only one showing the softness of the flesh at the top of the right arm seems to have been partly rubbed out by mistake or else not completed.

A2, 5 minutes, graphite stick. There is a clear impression of the model’s weight resting almost entirely on her left leg.

The minimal lines might have been influenced by Ishbel Myerscough or Kirsty Buchanan, both of whose work I admire. Myerscough is very subtle and sensitive and Buchanan much bolder but both say a lot with deceptively little.

A2, 20 minutes. The legs look to wide and too long for the body. I think I over-compensated from the perspective I was seeing from and made the mistake of not plotting the whole figure before starting at the top so it’s a drawing of two halves. On the plus side, I was very aware of the negative space between the right forearm and right thigh and the space between the left forearm and hip and this helped me with the angles.

A2, 25 minutes, Conte crayon. Head a disaster and I seem to have a blind spot for them. The head was tilted down to the chest and I failed to get the angle but I was focussed on trying to get the left hand done. Drawn before the anatomy sesssions but I should have been studying it myself. Liking the negative space between the left arm and the torso though maybe it’s a bit out of proportion with the right arm. (though I was quite far away from the model so left arm would have looked smaller).

A2, 20 minutes, Conte crayon. The left arm looks too long. I was focussed at first on the enormous negative space between the underside o the arm and the torso and then I measured more carefully and it measured correctly. I came to the conclusion that it was the angle I was seeing it at – the model was posed slightly to my left and the extended left arm was long compared to the torso against which I measured – so kept going. The right shoulder seems to extend a bit too far to the right. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave enough space for the right foot. I spent quite a lot of time looking at the scapula and at where the left arm joined the shoulder. If the model was upright, I think it’s obvious the elbow would drop only to the top of the hip where it should be. Maybe if I had included the chair she was leaning on for context the proportions wouldn’t have looked so odd.

I don’t like this drawing at all, not just technically but because I don’t like the pose and I don’t like the style. It reminds me of ‘glamour’ images or the sort of tronies rendered in ultra-‘feminine’ poses by the once popular Russell Flint (this print of whose I grew up with. Significant?).

Russell Flint, Eve and Jasmine (1958)

Strong lines to suggest form

Claudette Johnston works mainly in pastel and with a strong line, sometimes in gouche, which almost jumps off the surface.

Claudette Johnston, Figure in Blue (2018). Pastel and gouache on paper, 163 x 133 cm

15 – 20 mins, graphite stick. This time the sizing up of the model and the perspective came within seconds and I could start drawing immediately. Maybe all the better for it. I liked the pose so much I was curious what it would be like in colour so digitised it and added a few more lines and some colour using my stylus and the Sketchbook app on my tablet.

A2, 10 mins, Conte pierre noir pencil. Most of the lines very wobbly though the line of action (or inaction in this case) okay. I don’t know why I made the line of the left shoulder and arm so strong except I was really feeling the massive weight of them. I thought the better of it and tried to soften it with my finger but the pencil is too waxy to do anything except smudge. Smudged the right upper back by mistake. Black outline reminds me a bit of posters/graphic art.

Also reminds me of the Bridget Riley discussion of the inevitablity of abstraction at the micro level in representational art ( Riley, B ‘Making Visible’ in Kudielker, R (2002) Paul Klee: The Nature of Creation. Hayward Gallery, p 18 referenced in my Visual Art in Context essay).

20 mins, soft pastel. A horrible drawing in nearly every way, technically – proportions and perspective completely off, rendering of figure crude and coarse. I tried to fix it a bit at the end by adding some black lines but it couldn’t be fixed. But included here as there are things about it I like. A long way from classical it is very loose and it sort of represents how the model was standing at the easel – relaxed (the hand in the apron pocket) but also not relaxed (slightly self-conscious) – and the left shoulder lower than the right in contrast to the active right arm. Though the problems were mostly accidental (I was sitting on a chair and drawing with the board resting on my legs outstreched on another chair so it remained flat and I coudn’t or didn’t stand back to look at what I was doing), the exercise kept me mindful of the importance of remaining open to different ways of doing things – habits/ways of seeing/representing and personal/creative goals should always be questioned.

Heads and faces

The session where we looked at the planes of the skull and Natalie demonstrated deconstructing the skull into ovals at the various angles was very helpful and I began to use the method – very useful. Not so keen on the Andrew Loomis method – I find it hard to understand the blocking in thing – it feels for me like taking an extra, complicated step rather than simply trying to see the figure – but adapting it to think of the head as having a geography of its own is helpful. Doing heads and faces daunting – I haven’t done many – but glad to have started somewhere.

A4, 20 minutes (?), pencil. After practicing drawing some tilted, intersecting ovals I had a go at the head. The nose is far too big and the bridge too high.

A4, 20 mins, pencil. Things didn’t go particularly well – I was tired and uninspired. I took a long time to do very little. From where I was the pose was not quite full profile but I drew the nose as if it was – so didn’t catch the angle of the eyes correctly.

A4, 10 minutes, pencil and gouache. I drew this and went back into it with gouache later. I don’t know why I painted patches but I think I wanted to know what would have happened if I blocked in some colour first for volume and form and then drawn into it – which I did a bit again after the paint dried. The drawing looks nothing like the model, whose head isn’t too big for his body and he doesn’t have an enormous nose (plus the bridge is too high so his right eye would be higher than the left if it was visible) or a glowering expression in his eyes. I spent quite a long time when I went back into it thinking about how the shoulders would come forward in the pose and trying it out on myself by sitting in the same way. I think I got the slightly fleshy quality of his arms and upper torso.

A2, Conte crayon, 25 minutes. A lot of experimentation here and very heavy handed for me. Am I trying to emulate Joan Eardley? Hand looks back to front and too small – badly drawn/fudged, so busy focussing on the face and feeling almost angry (as the marks seem to show) because going so much against my grain. Definitely out of my comfort zone with this one but pleased to take first steps.

Joan Eardley, Children and Chalked wall 3 (1962-3), oil,newspaper and metal foil on canvas

Next steps

I don’t yet feel at all settled in a style of my own though I can see most of my work is showing an emphasis on line and an attempt to create form primarily with minimal shading. I don’t often put my figures in a context eg by drawing what they’re sitting on and this can cause problems of perspective. I don’t feel at confident with heads and faces and I would very much like to explore a freer, more expressive way of working.

I found a very interesting contrast between the work of Ishbel Myerscough and Chantal Joffe, who paints a much looser, blockier kind of way and usually places her subjects very firmly within a distinctive setting.

Chantal Joffe, Venice (2023)

Both artists studied at the GSA at the same time and have remained friends and there is a very interesting discussion between them on the Royal Drawing School website at https://royaldrawingschool.org/living-library/chantal-ishbel-ali about their very different ways of working and the need for acceptance of what one is, without fighting it – one is slow, meticulous and classical and the other much quicker and more instinctive.

I have enrolled for an online course entitled ‘Drawing the Head’ being run over 5 full day sessions by the Royal Drawing School, starting at the end of April (fortunately, I have qualified for a 75% student discount). The head is my weakest area and I will be able to explore various methods and styles. I will also be continuing to go to life drawing at the Old School on Sundays.