Emmanuelle!

Last night I went along to the regular Tuesday night life drawing session at the Sussex County Arts Club in Brighton with my old pal and comrade on the boards (and now magician) Anton Binder who hadn't drawn a live model since his art college days back in the dim mists of time. Our model was the inspiring Emmanuelle who was stick thin and could hold a difficult pose like a statue! I've never seen anyone more French and I know a lot of French people! Anton did well and loved the experience. Here are some of my scribblings.

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!

Jenny on the Blog

What a treat to once again draw the wonderful French model Jenny at the Sussex County Arts Club last night. She has the most toned physique I've ever seen due to her hobby of rock climbing. Also in attendance were some of the usual suspects- Rich Newman, Geo Parkin, Xavier and Alexa Garside. We were joned later in the pub by Mark Harrison for a good old moan about art!

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!

Rachel under the Cathedral

There is a big contrast between the availability of life drawing sessions in Brighton and Palma.
In Brighton you can go to many different life drawing sessions in different venues all over the city both day and night and in Palma I can only find one. And it only happens once a week on a Wednesday afternoon but it does take place in the exotic setting of the ancient stone vaults in the shadow of Palma´s magnificent cathedral. So it was there that I persuaded my Russian friend Anna with whom I had a recent exhibition at the German Consulate to join me in drawing the beautiful Rachel. Here are my best attempts.

The Drawing Circus- Matisse

I went along last night to the Drawing Circus which is a monthly event held very near where I live. I was only going to stay for an hour or so of the 4 hour session but it was so good and inspiring that I stayed 'til the end. The theme was Matisse and the bar area at The Old Market was colourfully decorated with large cut-out shapes taken from Matisse's famous works. We had four beautiful models-
Frankie, Laura B, Laura N and Clementine who was painted entirely blue which contrasted wonderfully with her curly red hair. And for the final tableau they were joined by the impressive and gorgeous Belle who organised the whole thing. It was great fun and it was a pleasant surprise to see old friend and marvelous puppeteer- Daisy there with her lovely friend Sofia. A great evening's drawing!
Here are my best efforts, some of which I've tickled up in Photoshop.

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.

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?

Clementine

Last night at SCAC's Tuesday night life drawing session our model was the beautiful French girl Clementine.
This is the second time I've drawn her in a week as she was one of the two models in the Egon Schiele inspired session for the Brighton Illustators Group.
I was working larger than I normally do and being very splashy with the watercolours hoping for the happy accident that watercolours can give you.
Afterwards a few of us repaired to the local hostilery for copious quaffage and the discussion of wide and varied topics as usual. Much fun!
Here are the best attempts.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

Jake Spicer's Drawing Circus

The other night I went along to another of Jake Spicer's excellent drawing events.
This time it was in the main hall of The Old Market so there was plenty of room. The event started in the afternoon but I went along to the evening part which ran from 8 to 11. There were 6 model. 5 girls and one guy. They were painted white all over to give a kind of Pierrot effect and their poses were accompanied by an excellent group of musicians playing drifty, ambient music which leant to the relaxed vibe. very enjoyable. Here are my best ones.