Beth

Last night at the life drawing session at The Sussex County Arts Club our model was the fabulous Beth who , unfortunately, won't be modelling for us for another year as she's off to study circus skills in Paris. Apparently, clowns are very big at the moment even small ones.

Different Jenny

At my final SCAC session last night before returning to the hot embrace of the Mediterrenean I thought I'd try out a different technique. More cartoony inspired by the work of the brilliant Shane Glines. Our model was Jenny but a different Jenny to last week's Jenny. Brighton's full of Jennys!

Double Trouble!

I managed to fit in two drawing sessions this week in between packing to move house. The first was part of the Brighton festival and was a Drawing Circus hosted by Jake Spicer incorporating three hours of live music and a host of excellent models in a variety of circus themed costumes. Jack's event are always superbly organised and inspiring as was this one. It took place in the Bosco Theatre beside the Spiegeltent on the Old Stein and the steeply tiered seats gave an excellent view of the varying tableaus as they changed and evolved. I had to leave early, unfortunately, so I missed the fabulous Naomi gyrating on a hoop. Great fun!
The following evening I went to my usual life drawing class hosted by Bill Donohoe at the Sussex County Arts Club where our model was the beautiful and statuesque Kate. She liked my drawings so I gave her one! I'll rephrase that- I donated one to her! That's better!

At the Double

I had two life drawing sessions on the bounce this week. First was at SCAC with artist and model lovely, lissom Laura Ryan then a private session at my bachelor penthouse flat where Alexa Garside and I drew the fabulous Naomi Wood. After a fairly long gap in Mallorca where the life drawing sessions are very thin on the ground it was great to get back in the saddle in arty farty Brighton where we are spoilt rotten for drawing. Her are my best scribblings from the two sessions.

Katie

Last night I attended my first life drawing class for a while at SCAC in Brighton and our model was titian haired beauty Katie who was a delight to draw. The sparce class (first of the new year and bloody cold outside) was attended by regulars- fellow cartoonist and lover of Mad magazine, Geo Parkin with his newly sprouting full beard and Rich Newman showing off his new iPad to the envious attendees. needless to say, we repaired to the favoured local hostilery afterwards to discuss all and sundry and quaff strange ales. Fun fun fun!

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.

Naomi, Mimi and Me

My very talented and lovely niece came to Brighton for a couple of days. It was her first visit since she was six (now nineteen) and she loved the place. She's an excellent oil painter (better than I'll ever be) and is starting at Glasgow College of Art in September. I'm sure she'll go far! I arranged a private session with the wonderful Naomi so that Mimi and i could have a chance of drawing together. It was great fun and we all got on swimmingly. Here are my efforts. Mimi will post hers up on her own blog I expect.

Laura the Fabulous Finn

Last night at The Sussex County Arts Club our model was Laura the fabulous Finn. I saw her a couple of nights ago playing her double bass in a local bar and belting out her own excellent songs. She's a talented lass and a great model too. One of the group's favourites. Here are my best six of the night.

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.

2 Lauras

This week I drew 2 different Lauras on 2 consecutive nights.
On Monday at The Farm Tavern a small class of drawers (just me and the organiser) attempted to capture the fabulous Finn- Big Laura and on the Tuesday night at SCAC a full studio tried to capture the long limbed loveliness of Slim Laura.
Here are my best ones.

Laura the fabulous Finn

Last week on my return from Mallorca I managed to fit in a couple of drawing sessions with Laura the fabulous Finn. One was a private session at my flat with Alexa Garside and the other was at the regular Tuesday night SCAC class. Laura is terrific to draw as she's very tall (6'3"), looks fabulous and can hold a pose like a statue. On top of that she has a great personality. I confess to being slightly smitten.
Hey ho! Dream on!

Rosy, oh, Rosy!

After a couple of weeks in Palma where there seem to be no life drawing classes I returned to Brighton where they are everywhere. Last Monday night, round at Kate Shields' wonderful flat a small group of eager drawers were treated to a modelling session by renowned poet and Russia-o-phile Rosy Carrick.
Here are some of my attempts to capture her loveliness.

Greta

A packed to the gunnels life drawing class last night at The Sussex Arts Club were treated to the sinous modelling skills of Greta. There were some notable newcomers in the class including master designer Nigel Spall, reknowned cartoonist Phil Dobson and expert illustrator and generally fab chap Pete Greenwood, who were all enthused by the experience and keen to repeat it. Here are my best efforts at portraying Greta. And then I'm off to Palma for a few weeks where life drawing classes are as dragon's eggs.

Emma Sandham-King

Monday night's new life drawing session in Kate Shields' fabulous flat in Embassy Court, Brighton was attended by 8 or so artists. Our model was the always wonderful Emma who has more curves than than road in San Fransisco er... the one that curves a lot.
Anyway, here are my best daubings from a great session.

Vicki

Tuesday night's life drawing session at SCAC was a bit quieter than usual as a small but cuddly band of stalwarts gathered to draw our model Vicki. I was feeling a bit dodgy after spending an evening with my mate Paul's brother Adrian who'd picked up something dodgy after falling into a canal in Holland.
Probably psychological but instead of repairing to the local hostilery for much quaffage I went home.
Here are my best Vickis.

Cleo Kate

Last night I returned to my regular Tuesday night life drawing class at The Sussex Arts Club after a break of a few weeks while I was in Hungary and then recovering. Our model was the fabulous Kate who has often been compared to Bettie Page although I think she's more Cleopatra. It was good to see

regular Rich and another returnee, the excellent cartoonist and all round good egg- Geo Parkin. After 2 hour of attempting to capture Kate's pulchritude we repaired to Mrs Fitzherberts for much nattering and quaffage. Ugh my head! here are my best scribblings.

Priya

Last Tuesday night at The Sussex Arts Club off Bond Street in Brighton our model was the rather beautiful Priya. Here are my best ones.

Kate Shields and the Zig Zag Method

Last night's session at the Farm Tavern was hosted, as usual, by Rachel Mortimer and our model this week was the talented and magnificent Kate Shields now residing in one of the most desirable flats in the whole of Brighton and Hove City (lucky cat!). There were only 5 artists present so it was a small bijou gathering and a fun and informal time was had by all. Rachel got us to try a drawing technique called The Zig Zag Method whereby you map out the figure going from point to point using straight lines until a correct image builds up then you can go over it with thicker lines and Hey Presto!- a good drawing! This theory actually seemed to work and we were all chuffed with the results. Mine is below top left. Have fun kiddies!

Laura the Fabulous Finn

Last night's life drawing session at The Sussex Arts Club was a packed house and our model was the rather wonderful 6'2" Finnish beauty Laura. She turned out to be a lovely girl as well as an excellent model and every pose which she held superbly was a delight to draw. As you can tell, I was very impressed, as were we all.
Here are my best efforts and I hope I get the chance to draw her again very soon.

More Emmas

Monday night's session at The Farm Tavern was co-hosted by Rachel Mortimer and the brilliant caricaturist Manon Delacroix. The latter was there to talk about drawing heads and figures by breaking them down into cubes. The former as an experiment got the 8 artists to draw Emma for one minute then pass the paper to the left and draw over the paper that they were passed for another minute and so on until you got back your original piece of paper. The results were very interesting and strangely varied.
here are my best normal sketches from an enjoyable session.