Well, I am slowly coming back after a 2 month hiatus.  My trip to France was not good and send me into a a deep cycle of depression. I was enjoying nothing and the weather wasn’t helping.  However, for about 3 weeks or more I have finally begun to emerge from that cycle and think about creative activities.  So hopefully in the next weeks, my output will increase to at least the previous level but hopefully even higher, as I quick my job last week. I realised that sitting at a pc 4 hrs a day moderating reviews was sapping any artistic inspiration from me.

I have joined a regular figure drawing group on Tuesday mornings and next week I intend to make good my plan to attend the plein air society meetings. Unfortunately, the weather is starting to get hot so that will be a hurdle I will have to overcome but it should be fun. My figure drawing not surprisingly is very weak and this Tuesday just plain bad.  Just need to get over the negativity that comes with failure and get on with it!

this one and the one below were done the first first Tuesday I attended. 

This was this week and the bottom one was probably the worst  😦

I really couldn’t get to grips with the poses this week and part of it was the amount of movement the model (you can sort of see it in the lying down pose with waving foot)l had but it shouldn’t have affected my drawing that much, I am not an artist who works with careful measurements. I have tried that method but because of a very lazy eye, it just doesn’t work.  The actual room is difficult to deal with as it has no natural light so the model is surrounded by studio lights.  The one thing I do tend to do is place the model in the situation so all the objects become part of the process. This model used a chair and stool  which I was using to place her feet in the lying down position.  It was a long pose so she had a break about 20 mins in. By the time I came back the the chair and stool had been move. She then got herself into position and I waited for a few minutes for her to get her legs in the right place but she resolutely kept them resting on each other. As the organiser tends to do portraits, I don’t think she noticed the pose was incorrect but other people were doing the full pose, so why didn’t they speak up? However, I did speak up and I really should have said something about the waving legs but think I will become more established before I start to grumble.  How I miss those Camberwell life poses, where everything was carefully marked and taped before the model moved. Then when we got back to a pose, the model was carefully placed back into position. Most of the time, the model was in the middle of the room and lighted by big windows.  If studio lights were used they were very carefully placed.

Anyway, I am just grateful I get the chance to do this, as only few years back, there was barely any figure drawing sessions available, not it seems there is something available each day of the week.  Once I am back in the groove I will investigate the more burlesque sessions that are available down town several nights of the week.