Kiara

Last night there was a packed-to-the-rafters SCAC life drawing session where we all attempted to capture the excellent poses of our model Kiara. Talking to Geo Parkin in the pub afterwards we remarked on how much we miss life drawing when we have a respite from it for whatever reason.
It's an addictive, meditative experience and I'd recommend it to anyone whatever your level of drawing expertise. Bill's class is very friendly and he plays great music so don't be shy- come on down!

Clementine

Last night here in Brighton was my first life drawing session at The Sussex Arts Club for about 3 months. I'd attended a couple of sessions in Palma but I'm not keen on how the Palma session is run. There is no music, no tea break and the same model for months. So it was very pleasant to get back
to Bill's Tuesday night class where he plays a great variety of fab toons, there is a decent tea break (with biccies) and a different model every week. Last night's model was a new one on me- the delightful Clementine, a lovely French girl with a fantastic mop of curly red hair. It's good to be back!

Gods and Goddesses

I went along to another of Jake Spicer's art events at The Old Market in Brighton last night. The theme this time was Hindu Gods and Goddesses and our wonderful models were Frankie, Laura Kate and Felix. The fabulous costumes and colourful sets were definitely an inspiration too and I was slightly miffed that I hadn't brought along any watercolours to do them justice. Anyway, I've tickled them up a bit in Photoshop so judge for yourself. My mate Mark Harrison was in attendance before jetting off to the U.S of A in a couple of weeks to inveigle himself into the American at scene. Go get 'em, Mark. And a welcome to the vibrant Brighton art scene to new girl Jelly who, impressively, makes a living out of art!

Laura the Fabulous Finn

Last night at The Sussex County Arts Club we were treated to a session modelled by Laura the Fabulous Finn who threw some wonderful poses while we all grooved to Bill's excellent (always)
compilation of banging tunes. I hadn't drawn Laura for a while and had forgotten how good she is to draw.

Kate Shields

On my birthday, having already celebrated for the previous two nights I went along to the regular Tuesday night session of life drawing at SCAC where our model was the ever fabulous Kate Shields.
It was a hot and clammy night and the assembled stalwarts (including fellow renowned cartoonist and comedy sketch writer Geo Parkin, flamboyant fashion artist Hamza Arcan, fitness instructor and illustrator Alexa Garside, anatomy expert, teacher and animator Jeremy Radvan and lovely new friend and healer Ye Ping Tsim) were wilting a bit but it was a fun session. Here are my best attempts at capturing Kate.

Drawing Circus

My first life drawing session back in Brighton after a 2 month stay in Majorca was down at The Old Market where Jake and the girls put on another intriguing event. The 4 girl models struck a mix of nude and dressed poses with a variety of times from 3 minute poses to Mary's heroic 45 minute standing pose that my fellow cartoonist Geo Parkin manage to do justice to. I was working exclusively on my iPad using the fabulous drawing app Adobe Ideas. Here are my efforts. Pip pip!

Good Old Egon

Just over 2 months ago before I left Blighty for the Med and a life of bibulous bucolicity in Majorca, I attended one of Jake's art events at The Old Market. The theme was Egon Schiele who is probably my favourite artist, certainly my favourite drawer so I went along. The following morning I was in such a flap packing everything I thought I'd need to work out there that I didn't have time to post my best efforts so here they are. It's impossible to do justice to the great man but us mere mortals can but try!

Leyre week 5 (week 4's files got corrupted!)

One Wednesday I attended my fifth life drawing session in the old stone cellars under the cathedral. Allen thinks he saw a ghost! After my abortive attempt at getting to grips with oil paint I thought I'd go back to my comfort zone of using acrylics but my comfort was stretched by the length of the poses- ten minutes. These are the best with a couple of drawings thrown in too. The model was our lovely regular- Leyre who is an excellent illustrator too.

Third time with Lyre

My third time at the art session here in Palma in an old stone vault below the cathedral. Our model was Lyre again. They seem to have the same model every week. Luckily she's great although on Wednesday she wasn't feeling well cos she has to have an operation on her stomach and the one person in a million who has an allergic reaction to the necessary pills is her. Nevertheless, she posed magnificently and here are my best efforts. Hope she's OK.

Leyre again!

For my second week attending the only life drawing session in Palma (which still amazes me!) it was my turn to pay the model which meant that I had also had to direct the poses. It's not as easy as it looks!
Luckily Leyre who is the same model we had last week is excellent and quite experienced and she also speaks very good English or all kinds of embarrassing misunderstandings might have occured with hilarious quinsiconces! Anyway, it all went well despite the differences to the classes I'm used to in Blighty as stated in my last post. No music and no tea break (Spanish tea is awful!)

Apparently they used to have music but they got so sick of the same CDs that they stopped. I might take along a compendium of 2BC's massive oeuvre next week. That'll put them off their stroke.

Life drawing in Majorca!

Finally, after 5 years of looking and asking and trying and failing to set one up myself, I've found a life drawing class in Majorca. A friend of a friend took me there yesterday afternoon to try out the regular weekly 2 hour session. I took place in an ancient building in the shadow of Palma's magnificent cathedral and was attended by 7 or 8 men and women who conversed during the poses in Spanish of which I understood very little. Our model was the lovely Leyre who is also an illustrator. There were a few differences to the classes I'm used to in Brighton. NO TEA BREAK!!! and no music which was a shame but after 5 years I'm not complaining! I'm going again next week with another local artist Alan.

Eleanor in the land of pink and grey

In Tuesday night's session at The Sussex County Arts Club a packed to capacity (26) crowd, including such eminent luminaries of the illustration world as Geo Parkin, Mark Harrison, Jeremy Radvan and of course, Bill Donohoe our gracious host and perveyor of cool toons to the artisans, tried to capture the lovely likeness of our model for the evening Eleanor. Here are my best scribblings.

Michaela

Last Tuesday night at SCAC here in Brighton we were treated to a drawing session with the fabulous Michaela.
Here are my best efforts from the night.

Jas and Kitty

I've had two private sessions with the lovely Jasmine Glover over the last couple of weeks. In the second session we were joined by Jas's friend Kitty, who wanted to try modelling and my friend Alexa who wanted to do some drawing. Both sessions were relaxed and fun affairs and here are my best scribblings from them.

Laura the Finn agin!

Last Tuesday's model at SCAC was  the fabulous Laura everybody's favourite Finn.
She's always great to draw as well as being one of the most confident young women I've ever met
and makes an impressive sight singing and playing her double bass in the bars of Brighton.

Moths!

I went along to last night's Draw session at The Old Market with art titans Mark Harrison and Geo Parkin. Frankie had chosen the theme- Moths! The various bizarre scenarios were modelled by Frankie, Emma, Felix and Charlotte (I think). This monthly session is great fun for newcomers and us old hands too. Come along to the next one!

Anatomy and me

I finally got along top the Worthing Museum and Art Gallery to see the exhibition that of life drawings that I'm part of. It went up on 4th March when I was in Hungary and is on until 29th March. On show is a wide range of styles of drawing by 12 artists in a lovely light and airy space. I managed to coincide my visit with a talk on anatomy by Jeremy Radvan (whose digital depictions of the human body are also in the show). Now there's a man who knows his onions. His talk (with slides) was really fascinating and I finally learned what my favourite part of the female anatomy is called- the sacral dimples!

Double Body Double

Last weekend I was lucky enough to have private drawing sessions with two stunning girls, my good friend Marie and my new friend Jasmine. In both cases I was exploring further the idea of "Body Doubles" or one model in one drawing with two joined poses. It has a psychological angle in that we all have more than one personality and there are at least two sides to us all. A dark and light side to bring it down to polarities. Anyway, that's what I'm endeavouring to indicate in this series of drawings. Deep huh?

Jasmine's Body Double

After making over 50 life drawings in the series I called "Me and my Shadow" trying to indicate the shadow psyche that we all carry according to Jung, I wanted to do something different but still with a psychological angle. So I had an idea for a kind of double exposure thing where the model strikes a pose then just moves part of her body into another pose on the same drawing so that that two figure are connected. I also wanted different expressions of attitudes  on her face to indicate two sides of her personality. My model was the lovely Jasmine who got what I was on about immediately and was very helpful in trying this idea out. I was rather chuffed with the results and am keen to do more. Here are the best ones. Thanks again to Jas!

Laura's Shadow

The other day Laura the fabulous Finn came over for a private modelling session.
I'd already chosen 6 of the "Shadow" series that I'd been working on for the forthcoming exhibition but I wanted to do some more with Laura in case I manage to sell any and need some more for the internet.
So here are the best ones. For a change I was working larger on A2 watercolour paper the only drawback to that is that they won't fit on my scanner so I had to use my iPad camera, hence the slightly odd colour gradation.

Amy

At last night's drawing session at the Sussex County Arts Club a full class (despite the God-awful weather) gathered to draw the lovely Amy who plays cello in A band with Lucy and Laura. Talented girls all! Here are me best scribblings.

Roller Derby Girls

Last night Jake Spicer's Draw group hosted another event at The Old Market. Emma Sandham-King was the host model this time and she presented us with her Roller Derby team kitted out in their tough
looking sports gear. Considering the fact that none of them, apart from Emma had modelled before, they were amazing and great fun to draw. I was working on my iPad for a change as I'd already had a private session with the wonderful Jasmine that afternoon using pencil and watercolour (I'll post these up later) so I fancied a change of technique. I was using my favourite art app for the iPad- Artrage and discovered a trap to avoid when using a digital app for drawing. If you zoom in to the image to draw a more detailed head after already drawing the body it's very easy to get the scale wrong as you can see fro the middle right image where the girls have enormous heads. I didn't have time to go back and do the heads again but I'll watch out for that in future. Still learning!

A Brace of Beauties

Yesterday I was privileged to draw two of the best of our local models here in the damp city of Brighton and Hove. I'm trying to build up a number of watercolour or charcoal drawings to choose
from for the up and coming exhibition in Worthing so to that end I had the gorgeous and very talented Jasmine Glover round to my flat to pose for Alexa and me in the afternoon then I went to my regular class in the evening at SCAC where our model was the luminously lovely Lucy Victoria Sponge who is also very talented. I'm still exploring the theme of the shadow that we all carry with us. Freud calls it the unconcious mind which also encompasses the collective unconcious and is usually a very negative influence that has to be confronted and accepted whereas Jung things the shadow contains positive elements like the spark of creativity which (as we artists know) can be richly rewarding. A bit deep for as jobbing cartoonist but that's what I'm (subconciously) trying to put across. Anyway, here are the best from yesterday. Jasmine is on top with Lucy under her. Er... I think I could have put that better. I need a lie down.

Shadey ladies

I've been asked to join about a dozen other artists in an exhibition of life drawings to appear in Worthing in March and to that end I wanted to try out a new unified style instead of my usual eclectic mish-mash. I've recently seen two artists' work that has inspired me. Russell Patterson, and american illustrator from the 20s and 30s used a lot of areas of black in his images and modern artist Steve Huston does fabulous work with charcoal. So I decided to try my hand at monochrome images in watercolour and charcoal and these are what I've come up with so far. I'm quite pleased with the way it's looking and the large dark shadows are meant to symbolise the oppressive dark side of our personality or the emotional baggage that we carry around and the naked figure stands for vulnerabilty.
I'm hoping to create some sort of emotional response in the viewer rather than just creating pretty pictures of naked people. I don't think I'm quite there yet but I'm going to keep going and see where it leads me.