First Osher Class with Hector

Our Osher Figure Drawing term began last Friday, and we were fortunate enough to have Hector as our model.  

We began with 2-minute mass gesture poses to warm up.  We swept the side of our charcoal over the page to express the forms of Hector's body.  We moved on to 3-minute poses, adding several descriptive contour lines to the smoky silhouettes.

Changing to a more abstract approach, we played with using only 5 lines to capture Hector's 1-minute poses.

And finished up with a 15-minute pose:

And a long pose of nearly an hour.  Hector had brought along a beautiful woodland scene backdrop, and some silk flowers, inspiring us to imagine him as the King of the Forest.

A delightful morning spent swept away into the Zen of figure drawing.  Many thanks to model Hector!

Osher Figure Drawing with Model Alexx

Model Alexx inspired me and my students on Friday morning with a series of gorgeous gesture poses.  

We began with six, one-minute poses.  I invited my students to group three drawings to a page.  I love how Alexx created varied poses that worked together as a set, and her inventiveness in incorporating a fan.

We moved onto to two minute poses, followed by a five-minute pose (photo at top).

It felt so freeing to draw pose after pose, falling into a flow state, and knowing that with a Sharpie, I couldn't go back and erase. It pushed me to be bold and respond directly to the curves and contours I saw.

For our final long pose (below), I began with a gesture done in vine charcoal, then wiped off the charcoal with a rag, leaving a ghost image of what I had drawn as a guide.  I finished the hour-long pose (broken into 25-minute segments with stretch breaks for Alexx) with my Sharpie.

One of my students, Cathleen, commented that each different medium we use creates different marks, moods, and image styles.  I agree, and I notice that each different medium expresses a different facet of us as artists.

So why not pick up a different medium than what you've been using, and make some sketches? Play around, and see what wants to be expressed within you.