Figure Drawing Marathon

To help raise money for the Diablo Valley College art department, a figure drawing marathon was held this weekend. I always love me some figure drawing but, lately, it has been relegated to quick sketches with my Moleskine while waiting for doctor's appointments or whatever I dream up out of my head or from looking at photos. But there is no substitution for real life drawing.

While searching for some larger paper for the marathon, I found a half-used drawing pad. Inside, apparently, were some drawings from some of the last figure drawing sessions I had....way back in April 1999. Ugh! We are already a decade into a new century. Has it really been THAT long?? Apparently so!

Fortunately, I wasn't as rusty as I could have been because of all the drawing I have been doing over the last year. We had a good group of about twenty of us and two models splitting the day. The second model of the day was Tyler who did a few long poses. I guess I am so use to doing quick drawings now that the longer poses were a challenge (this was the complete opposite when I was young). With the longer pose, when I found myself with a good drawing with decent structure, I found I then went in and over-rendered the drawing like above on drawing number two. As a result, I then start to loose the structure lines. I did the same thing with the Frank Cho drawing session back in May.

To break up the long poses, I decided to do some shorter studies, usually portraits. Above is when I switched to a marker.

Our first model of the day was Judith. A lovely model. Both models were extremely professional and good.

Below are quicker 5 minute and 1 minute poses.

 

 

Below: More over rendering? Perhaps.