DRAWING CLASS #8

Here are my latest drawings from class last Thursday. I forgot my camera so today when I went to my painting class, I took photos of my sketchbook that I leave there because it's so big to be hauling around on the subway (and no, I am not going to take a cab).

The model this week was really, really great. Not that she was so great at posing, she was quite boring at posing (man, that makes such a difference when you have someone who is agile and graceful and comfortable being naked in front of a bunch of strangers, but this one was HEFTY! She weighed a good 100 pounds more than normal but it was SO fun to draw her! We warmed up for a while (these are the first 2 pages of sketches) one minute poses, so they're quick. I started out with the normal pen and ink - like you'd use to do calligraphy - and then tried a pen I bought at a stationary store. It has an ink cartridge but the tip is a brush. It's great! It works more like a charcoal pencil because if you move quickly, it skips and looks like a pencil but you can make thick, black lines and (if you are really careful) you can make tiny, thin lines. I just draw on top of the other drawings, so it may be a little hard to see...


Then the teacher talks to us and shows us books of drawings for about half an hour and we take a break before we go on to the longer drawings. This teacher's name is Lee Tribe and I may have said it before, he's a weird guy, but he is incredibly inspiring. He is totally non-judgmental actually brought a book of drawings this time that looked like some kid in high school was doodling and making notes on the doodles. He told us not to worry about what our drawings look like - that some may think they are lousy or amateurish or not beautiful - but that we should draw what and how we feel like drawing and feel free to express ourselves in any way we choose. That may sound cheeky but you can't believe how good it is to hear when you are in a class with 10 other students who see your work and you see their's and you can't help but to compare.

I drew 2 drawings on a small, 12"x14" pad of watercolor paper because my sketch pad is thin paper - almost as bad as newsprint - but I felt so constrained by the tiny size of the paper for this huge body, I went back to my big sketchbook. These 2 were 20 minutes drawings but I was done in 10 so I drew each twice. Great fun!