Osher Figure Drawing: Cowgirl Rising

Recently, my Osher Lifelong Learning Institute class at CMU was fortunate to get to draw model Robin.  We took inspiration from artist Donna Howell-Sickles, who creates mixed media paintings of cowgirls.

Robin took on the role of Howell-Sickles' cowgirl in her poses, expressing pluck and strength.

My class experimented with using bold colors in our artworks, as Donna Howell-Sickles does in her paintings. And we practiced drawing a 4-minute gesture of Robin's long pose on newsprint before creating our final drawings on good paper.

Here are David's drawings, first the 4-minute gesture:

...and his final drawing:

I love how he used his red pastel to dramatic effect.  Using a color in more than one spot in your composition helps to connect the elements of the artwork, creating unity.

Many thanks to model Robin for an inspiring drawing session!

If you'd like to see more of Donna Howell-Sickles' art, check out her website here:

https://www.donnahowellsickles.com/

Happy Creating!

Figure Drawing: Portrait Practice with Model Emily

Recently, in Osher Figure Drawing class, I led my students through the process of drawing faces.  

We began by looking at portraits by masters like Peter Paul Rubens for inspiration, noticing how their mark-making, color choices and lighting created portraits that were full of vitality.  

We warmed up with some quick gesture drawings, then, had a 15-minute practice pose with Model Emily.

I began by sketching the structure of Emily's head and face with a light colored pastel pencil, then built up areas of tone and details with chalk pastels and pastel pencils.  The pencils allow more control for fine details like Emily's eyes, nose and lips.

Many thanks to model Emily for her beautiful and creative poses!  Having a good model makes drawing so much easier.

Figure Drawing with Model David

My Osher figure drawing class explored the realm of blind contour drawing with model David. 

We began each pose looking only at David as we drew, not at our papers.  We followed the contours of his expressive gestures with a colorful pastel on newsprint.

After 1 minute, we changed pastel colors, and continued to follow contours inside and outside of David's form, stealing quick glances for the last 2 minutes.

Within each blind contour drawing, we found real, alive lines, no matter how wonky the drawing looked overall.

We moved on to practicing drawing the feet, working from general to specific in a 15 minute study.

With Michelangelo's Statue of David in the news, it seemed fitting for David to inspire us with this 10-minute pose.

We finished with a reclining pose for the final hour.  Below is my quick sketch.

Many thanks to model David for a his creative, thought-provoking poses!

Osher Figure Drawing with Model David

 

Once again, a scheduled model couldn't make it to our home studio for an Osher class -- this time due to work calling the model in at the last minute.  David came to the rescue and served as our model.

We started with 3-minute gestures.

As David created more abstract poses, I was drawn to expressing them with blind contour.

For this crouched, egg-shaped pose, I used blind contour exclusively.

All warmed up, we moved into long poses. David began with a standing 20-minute pose.

After a break, we finished up with an hour-long pose.

Many thanks to model David for rescuing the class again!

Osher Figure Drawing with Model David

We had a wonderful exploration of the skeletal structure last Friday with model David.  For a warm-up, David posed with a life-sized resin skeleton we have affectionately named "Skelly Bones."

I asked my students to take the first minute of the 3-minute pose to lay in a stick drawing for David's skeletal structure in one color, then draw a loose gesture over top of that structure with a contrasting color for the remaining time.

Though I didn't draw Skelly Bones, David set up the skeleton to mirror his own pose for each of the standing gestures, and this guided us through the structure in David's form.

After the gestures, we moved on to study the legs, and practiced with laying in the structure, then making a gesture drawing, checking our measurements, and adding a bit of shading and detail, like the toenails.

We finished up with the long pose.

Many thanks to David for filling in on a snow day when our scheduled model couldn't get to the farm studio!

Osher Figure Drawing with Model Amelia

This week's focus of study was dealing with the challenge of foreshortening.  We warmed up with Amelia taking contrapposto standing poses for us-- the classic standing twist. By drawing with a continuous line, we could explore interior and exterior contours, and with our drawing implement always in contact with the paper, we could spend more time looking at Amelia and less at our paper.

We moved on to 4-minute wrapped-line drawings.  Rather than following the outer contours of Amelia's form, we imagined we were mapping the path of an ant crawling back and forth across Amelia, and so created a contour drawing.  This technique helps to understand the landscape of a foreshortened limb.

Amelia's final gesture of the series was quite foreshortened, giving us a great opportunity to test what we had been practicing.

We moved on to a 15-minute study of foreshortening -- the challenge of drawing a limb coming directly towards us.

We finished the class with a long pose of about 50 minutes (with breaks of course), and incorporated foreshortening into the pose as well as interesting background elements. 

Many thanks to model Amelia for a fantastic session with amazing contrapposto poses!

Osher Figure Drawing with Model Sophia

Friday, November 19th, we had a wonderful session with model Sophia.  An incredibly inventive and flexible model, Sophia created gesture poses that stretched our abilities and strengthened our drawing and observational skills.

During the gestures, I asked my students to spend the first minute of each three minute pose looking for the underlying structure of Sophia's body. We used one color for the structure, capturing Sophia's spine, her rib cage, her skull and other bones.  With two minutes remaining in the sketch, I called for a color change and we chose a contrasting color for the outer contours and shadows, building upon the armature we had laid down in the first minute.

Sophia's last pose was so abstract that it pushed our observation and drawing skills, and was a valuable workout.

All warmed up, we moved on to practicing drawing faces.  I demonstrated the process of finding the shape of a person's head, laying in the eye line about halfway down the face, drawing the eyes, and then measuring where the nose and lips fit in.  

We finished up with a long pose that incorporated our study of Sophia's face.  I used pastels on blue Canson Mi Teintes paper, and followed my intuition on color choices within Sophia's figure and in the negative space.

Many thanks to model Sohia for an amazing session full of inspiration and discovery!

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!