Another Day

Naked Man Holding a Cup. A quick silverpoint drawing I did at my last life drawing session. This was done with a biggish piece of stirliing silver onto a light yellow toned gouache paper. I've proven to myself that silverpoint doesn't have to be all painstaking fine lines and cross hatching. I really liked the natural pose. This was just as he was standing naturally during our coffee break. I prefer these poses to the more contrived poses that models are often encouraged to assume in life drawing classes.

A detail of Anne's face after another session.

I've been doing more drawing recently, trying out different mediums, and I thought I would try out the ancient technique of silver point. Siver point is, as the name suggests, simply drawing with a sharpened piece of silver onto paper that has been prepared with a coating of gouache to impart a tooth. For my first atempt I sketched Dale sat knitting whilst watching TV. A rare occasion that finds her sat still!

I have been working on Anne's fluoresent orange plastic crocs and struggling to relate how I see everything to the chair I painted. Perhaps Pearlstein knows something afterall..  I have had to move the chair up in relation to the figure slightly. It's still a constant juggling act at this stage for me, I find. I've begun Anne's face and she is looking rather fierce. I feel the face needs to be smaller perhaps.

Here is the progress so far on the portrait of Anne.  I worked on her clasped hands which are in a strong focal point in the composition.  I'm not happy with them and they will need repainting, however it gives me something to relate everything else to. I also have started to establish the chair itself.  I worked on it when she wasn't there. Just a couple of pillows and her fluorescent orange crocs ..!  I am always conscious of wasting peoples time, just sitting for my benefit. Painting from life always seems such a self indulgent activity in many ways.  I read somewhere that the American figurative painter Phillip Pearlstein insists that his models are sitting there even when he's painting the furniture... but that seems a bit excessive to me.  Sometimes I wonder if you perhaps have to be a bit of a sadist to paint people from life.  Bowls of apples don't make me feel so guilty.