I haven’t been able to post any of my Life Drawing images because we’ve been working on them in the classroom.  I still don’t have the drawing/painting I did of the skeleton, with the human form laid over the top, as it is still up on the wall at college.  I haven’t had a chance to get a photograph of it either.  There are only another 6 weeks left of this term, so no doubt I will get it back then.

I couldn’t wait to start Life Drawing, but it is proving much more difficult than I’d expected.  I know it was going to be more difficult, no doubt, but not as difficult as I’m finding it.  I find the lighting rather hard to cope with, and I need to go for an eye test for new glasses and contact lenses.  I definitely think I need to wear my glasses for this classes rather than my lenses.  The vision with lenses is never as good as with glasses.

Because we are sitting at a certain distance from the model it makes it harder to see all the subtle nuances of the face/body.  Although I’m inclined to think that the eyes are trying too hard to see things that we know are there but aren’t able to discern from a distance.  I know that I should just draw what I see, rather than what I think should be there, but it is difficult to break this habit.  I am trying though.

The part I found most difficult to draw was the mouth.  The gentleman’s mouth we are drawing is very small, the lips are very thin, and I find it too difficult to see the subtleties in shade.  My tutor said that sometimes you have to force what you don’t see onto the image, which kind of contradicts his other statement of just drawing what you see.  So, my question would be: At what point should you force something or just draw what you see?

Matt has told me that it will get easier with time.  I’m sure he’s right but it feels like a struggle just now.  Here are the images I’ve done so far: