Constanza

On Wednesday afternoon I went along to the only life drawing session I can find in Palma with fellow artist Alan. Our model was the excellent Constanza whom I've drawn before here. Unlike Brighton they tend to have the same model for months which is fine if she's as good to draw as Constanza but can be boring if she's not. Anyway, It's good to keep practicing so here are my best efforts from the session.

Escaping the Outline!

Like my fellow cartoonist and all round good egg- Geo Parkin, I have recently become enamoured with the joys of watercolour. It's such a happy medium! Prone to the surprising happy accident. I love it. Normally I would draw the subject in outline and use the watercolour to freely colour it up but last night I decided to get out of my comfort zone and paint the model ( the excellent KIARA) without any guidelines. Just watercolour paint straight onto the paper. Below are  the mixed results of this nerve racking but enjoyable experiment before I scurried back to my comfort zone like a scalded cat and took up the outline again.
Well you've got to challenge yourself occasionally incha?

Naomi Noir

I've been trying to emulated the great film noir images from crime novel covers of the 40s and 50s with the help of my new muse the gorgeous redhead Naomi. My intention is to get enough paintings together for an exhibition glorifying the redhead. It's early days yet as acrylic isn't my usual medium but
Naomi is inspiring me to keep trying. Here are my latest efforts.

Doing a Double

Over the last two nights I've attended The Sussex County Arts Club for two life drawing sessions.
The first one was Bill Donohoe's excellent Tuesday night session where the assembled scribblers tried to capture the fabulous curves and huge eyes of Michaela whilst groovin' on down to some chilled vibes, man.
Then last night Jo Moore on behalf of the Brighton Illustrators Group hosted a session inspired by the work of Egon Schiele with models Laura Kate O'Rourke and Clementine (I'm sorry Clem but I don't know your surname) for 3 long poses in suitable Schiele-esque clobber and finally in a nude tableau.
It was a great and inspiring session and here are my best efforts from both nights.

Kate Shields

I'm trying to get in as much life drawing as I can in Brighton before returning to Mallorca where there is only one class and it isn't very good. So I attended Bill's always excellent session at The Sussex County Arts Club last night where our model was the immensely talented Kate Shields sporting a snazzy new haircut which was great to draw. Here are my best ones. Afterwards some of us repaired to the local Wetherspoons for some cheap quaffage and arty-farty chat! Much funnings!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Jasmine and Michaela

I had one private session with Jasmine and a SCAC session with Michaela a couple of weeks back but because of the pressure of Christmas deadlines I've only just got around to scanning and posting these and I've had another session since these which I need to scan in too. It's all too much! Can I have 8 more hours in the day please Time Lords?

Lichtenstein themed session

Last Tuesday night Jake Spicer's Draw group held a Roy Lichtenstein inspired life drawing event at The Old Market in Brighton and Hove. As usual it was well attended and there were three tableaux design and built by Laura and three models in suitable pop art costume and make-up to pose in front of them. I seemed to spend most of the evening drawing the magnificent Laura Nenonen who was throwing some suitably cartoony shapes. Great fun! Next month the theme is Norse mythology so get yer helmets out gang!

Sophia

Tuesday night's session at The Sussex County Arts Club was pretty full as usual and our model was the excellent Sophia who could hold a pose like a statue. Other cartooning stalwarts in attendance were Geo Parkin and Phil Dobson. Here are my attempts at capturing the lean and  lissom Sophia.

Kate times 2

Over the last couple of nights I've had two drawing sessions with Kate Shields at the SCAC.

The first was Bill Donahoe's regular Tuesday night class where he plays great music to accompany the scribbling and last night was a special event organised by Kate (who has more fabulous curves that the Amalfi coast road) and her fellow fab modelling pals Frankie and Emma. The theme was the three muses linked by red twine in a varied three hour session accompanied again by a great soundtrack. There was a fabulously tranquil and inspiring atmosphere and it was good to see my old studio mate Dan Lish there for his first life drawing session in yonks. Thanks Kate for a great event.

Jasmine and Michaela

This week on two consecutive nights I was lucky enough to draw two models who were new to me and they were both fabulous. On the Monday night at Kate Shields' private session in her lovely flat overlooking Brighton sea front our model was the truly beautiful Jasmine whom Kate had met at Glastonbury. A small group of artists attempted to capture her loveliness on paper.
On the following night at the SCAC session we had another new model Michaela who was also
fantastic to draw as I hope you'll see from my scribblings. I'm off back to Palma next week where I have yet to find a drawing session so it was great to draw these two wonderful models before I go.

Zoe

Zoe was our model on Tuesday night at Bill's life drawing session at the SCAC. She's slim and tanned and very goo

d to draw. That night she had a feather in her hair giving her a Native American Indian Squaw look which appealed to me greatly being a bit of a fan of all things Wild West.