LIFE DRAWINGS (page 1)
										◄ Life Drawing. (Far left) seated male, watercolour over Conté crayon on paper. (Left) seated female, Conté crayon on paper.
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► Life Drawing. Reclining female, gel pen on paper.
I think it’s often the pressure of having to work fast that produces the better results. You can’t afford to mess about. You have to be ‘switched on’ and resourceful. You have to concentrate, look carefully — that is, look often and decisively, and draw with conviction.						By repeating these exercises you can reach a state of mind where you’re drawing automatically. When a drawing’s going well it’s a very elevating feeling, you feel happy, dare I say, euphoric almost! And the result is taut and energetic. Drawing can become an addiction, I think — but a healthy one.
										◄ Life Drawing. Reclining female, gel pen on paper
► Life Drawing. Far right, female hunched, made rapidly with harsh incisive lines using a biro on paper. Right, sitting female, Indian ink on paper
In the quick gestural (or gesture) poses, what I’m after is not so much a likeness of a person as a snapshot of the rhythms and dynamics of the pose. Sometimes, in a longer pose, I’ll distort the perspective – take the part closest to me, such as a hand or foot, and blow it right out of proportion. But what I really admire is the simplest line work. To see why, take a look at the drawings of (and I apologize for even mentioning these names alongside my own stuff) Honoré Daumier, Isdre Nonnell, Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Auguste Rodin and Egon Schiele, and you’ll see for yourself. Daumier’s drawings, in particular, are full of a vitality that we all recognize – figures in motion, sometimes violently so, in a street scuffle or a mad dash, for instance, or in the act of gesturing. The figures are quite literally, ‘taken from life’ but by a swift and magical movement of the hand of a genius.										◄ Life Drawing. Female standing (right), Conté crayon on paper.
			The Austrian artist, Egon Schiele, had an almost frighteningly brilliant capacity for using a line with both precision and expression (apparently effortlessly)! Life drawing is enjoying a bit of a comeback of late (particularly with students of animation and fashion illustration) but there are still many artists and teachers who think it is irrelevant to contemporary fine art art. All I can say is: take a look again at Schiele’s drawings, and in particular, the poses from around 1915. Tell me these drawings aren’t relevant to life (whenever)! I think he’s startlingly ‘modern’ – years ahead of himself, and probably always will be. (You can follow links to some of these artists’ work on the links page at the end of this site.)						◄▼ Life Drawing. Seated male (left) gel pen on paper. (Below) male standing, watercolour over black coloured pencil, (below left) male standing blue and black coloured pencil.