A project for life drawing this term was to use collage techniques to create an image. The term’s work has consisted of less representational drawing work and more exploration into extrapolation of form and figure as well as different materials and techniques.

Here’s the reference ‘sketch’ I made:

And here’s the completed collage:

One of the things that struck me about the source image was the striking light and the contrast between highlights and shadows. When choosing materials for my collage I chose to go with bright colours, reflective surfaces and contrasted them against a black background. The hi-vis material was pretty fun to work with.

This year I’ve been taking life drawing classes. Unlike still life setups from my general drawing class last year, life models aren’t able to hold the exact same pose for the entire time they’re needed as reference. Sometimes, they “sag into the pose”, and sometimes we come back from a break and they aren’t able to quite return to the same pose as prior.

So what do you do when a model hasn’t returned to the same pose? Well, the easiest thing to do is to direct them back into the right one. If the pose is only slightly off, then sometimes the differences can be ignored – especially if the drawing itself is complete and the artist is on to the next stage, like toning or colouring. This time, we didn’t catch the differences, and my nearly-complete sketch was quite off. With nine minutes left for the pose my art teacher advised me to redraw the areas that were off – mostly the arms and curve of her back.

Image previews tiny so you can decide whether they’re safe for work or not. There’s very little detail but it’s still a nude. In an artistic context! An artistic nude, if you will.