More Beachmen

Back in the studio on Thursday I was working on a few different pictures. 
Warmed up with a quick graphite sketch of Inchkeith.  Trying to get a little mystery and darkness into the image so have not included the Fife coast behind the island.  I did this from an earlier small sketch.  I will do a painting of this one of these days.

Inchkeith Again

Beachman 2

Then I thought I would add a little colour to the beachman pics.  This one definitely was an improvement (see previous blog), but I still need to work at the texture to make it sufficiently interesting as a picture.  I was very restrained about the colour - I think it has to be very subtle.  I also like the stance of the figure - it's not clear what he's doing.

Beachman 1

I did this similar treatment to the running beachman, but the colour is a bit stronger here.  I don't think it works so well (although I do like the purple reflection).
Why do I get drawn to this image?  Partly because I look out over the beach here at Fisherrow and see people walking when the tide is out.  They look so small against the vastness of the beach.  But maybe it's not interesting enough as a picture.  I'll keep thinking about this.

No more life drawing

It's very sad.....the life drawing sessions I was going to on a Monday evening in the Fisherrow Community Centre in Musselburgh have now finished.  Last Monday was the last time.  Two reasons - not enough interest to keep it going, and the difficulty of getting life models to come to Musselburgh on a Monday night. 

Well, I tried to make the most of the last night.

Last model 1 copyright Aileen Grant

 This was my best drawing of the evening, even tho' it was just a 20 minute drawing.  I was using a graphite stickfor drawing - I think it's quite good for life drawing - just a bit more subtle than charcoal.

A couple of my warm-up drawings were not too bad.  Here they are.

Last model 2 copyright Aileen Grant

Last model 3 copyright Aileen Grant

The one above was only a 5 minute drawing.  As usual, I would have liked more time but there's something about the pose that I like.

The final 40 minute drawing was this one.  It was not a very inspiring pose, and kinda difficult to draw, so I don't think it turned out well.  I needed extra space to capture the pose, so this drawing is over two A4 pages (hence the white line down the middle).  It has a sort of exaggerated perspective.  I'm not sure.  What do you think?

Last model 4 copyright Aileen Grant

I'm so disappointed about these sessions folding, but I must confess that I didn't go along often enough in the autumn, so I'm not entirely blameless.  A few of us think that life drawing is really important and we want to keep going at it.  I think it's great that we (of all ages and backgrounds) have this in common. So I'm going to explore other avenues.