Today was my first session at the South Whidbey Island Figure Drawing Group. For my first session on the island I felt a bit rusty, I’m not sure if it was the different setting, the different pose structure or the fact that I didn’t get a chance to do my warmup drawings but I felt a bit lost at the beginning.
For the past 10 months of figure drawing in Portland the Hipbone Studio had the exact same pose schedule. Ten 1.5 minute gestures, three 5 minute poses, two 15 minute poses then three 30 minute poses. I guess I got very used to that line-up and I think it’s good that i’m stepping out of that comfort zone and into a more organic schedule.
During this session, the artists as a group decided on the pose length. I didn’t provide much input because honestly I didn’t have much of an opinion I just wanted to draw from the figure. And this was my first time so I didn’t feel like I could be very outspoken.
The gestures and 5 minute poses were the worst, honestly I say it over and over again, but I just need to sit down and focus on gestures and short poses for a week.
The model tended to rotate a bit on this pose but it was fun chasing the pose a bit. I re-drew the hands and some of the torso while leaving an ghost of the other drawing. I’m glad that I feel comfortable enough with drawing the figure that I don’t need the model to act like stone, I’m more than happy with keeping this process organic.
I’m not sure what happened here, I figured I could have done a better job with a 50 minute pose, but I was just having trouble getting into the groove today. I’ve already signed up for next Saturday, so I hope I can bring it back to the quality that I want.
I’m sure there is a small learning curve each time you go to a new place. It’s not that your skills lack, it’s getting into a groove, meeting new people, settling in. I’m glad that we have both dived right into our passions though.