Open Studio Long Pose

At the figure drawing open studio tonight I attempted to put the Watts Atelier course to use, but the glaring lack of my drawing ability made it difficult to do anything. I think the largest issue I was having was wanting to move to fast. I’m so excited and want to hit each stroke perfectly with a flourish like Jeff Watts but my ability is just nowhere near his. So, by the last drawing I figured out that I need to move extremely slow through the figure.

The Drawings

chris-beaven-charcoal-hipbone-open-studio-1-060915My warmup, I’m really glad that the Watts Atelier has given me a purpose before class. Previously I would just sit and wonder what to do, but now, I do my warmup routine and work on focusing my mind.

 

chris-beaven-charcoal-hipbone-open-studio-2-060915First drawing, 45 minutes long. Here I was going somewhat slow and the drawing wasn’t too bad. The model was very thin, and I found it hard to figure out anything with the upper body. I kept wanting to have more knowledge of anatomy to help me through what I was seeing.

 

chris-beaven-charcoal-hipbone-open-studio-3-060915Here I’m going a bit faster in my drawing, this was 20 minutes and you can see that the speed is starting to cause issues.

 

chris-beaven-charcoal-hipbone-open-studio-4-060915Even faster now, and I’m getting frustrated. Looking back on this I see now that I was just going fast to try and push myself into great drawing too fast. I needed to slow it up, and let my hand, eye, and brain catch up with each other.

 

chris-beaven-charcoal-hipbone-open-studio-5-060915More frustration, as you can see I even made a note here to slow down.

 

chris-beaven-charcoal-hipbone-open-studio-6-060915Terrible…

 

chris-beaven-charcoal-hipbone-open-studio-7-060915I’m very frustrated at this point, luckily I had a 10 minute break to calm myself.

 

chris-beaven-charcoal-hipbone-open-studio-8-060915Finally, I figure out that I need to go slow. I added tone to this drawing while I was moving through the figure but I wish I didn’t. It tends to hide the glaring drawing issues. I’m still too attached with making a good finished drawing. At this point in my ability I should be working hard on getting the lay-in as accurate as possible along with clean lines, rather than worrying about the finished drawing.

 

 

Session Details