The Gods of Creativity (Athena? Dionysos? Hathor? Silenus or Bes even? – he’s totally the Egyptian Silenus crossed with Buddha!) sometimes desert me in ways I do not understand. After last week’s triumph, we have these children of a lesser god. Something about her neck confused me and I couldn’t get it right…interesting how I ended up elongating her whole body as the A3 watercolour stick sketch below.
And sometimes it just doesn’t click with a model, I felt her poses were ‘haughty’ and cold, regal maybe but it didn’t warm me to her, hence probably the angry expression below, I tend to project and externalise my disquiet onto the model, I find. It’s just as much about me as them, it’s a sort of dance. I rarely do flattery too, I’m not interested in lying or beautifying a model, much to their distress sometimes when they look at my work! I’d like to be more honest/accurate though, when things get warped due to that ol’ chestnut, time pressure and me diving straight in, it’s annoying.
Maybe it’s because I arrived late – there was a fracas just outside where the life drawing is held, with a (suicidal?) person who had climbed the scaffolding a few doors down, and the road was closed and buses were backed up for a long distance. I had to walk a mile to get there so I arrived just as the first pose had started, very flustered. I’m sure the drama unfolding outside didn’t help (the man came down before our session ended and was taken to hospital, so I guess there was a good ending to all that chaos). But this does not help a relaxed state of mind!
So above we have the only good watercolour – love the skin tones but again that neck thing. Or she was something like 6-7ft high giraffe. I think that was it 😉 The rest of the session is too embarrassing to post – in fact I was debating whether to skip this week, but these pieces convinced me they weren’t all bad. I did have fun using my new orange watercolour stick! Legs went a bit too purple though…
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