The night when I realise that one minute isn’t so scary…

All good things must come to pass. Tonight it was the turn of my art class to close – can it really be ten weeks ago that I first started this series of Wednesday night posts? After last week’s flourish of success in brush and ink I feared that my last session would end, disappointingly, in disaster.

Not so! My first sketch, a ten minute pose in blue pastel, I am very happy, and the following one in ink was not the mistake that it might have been.

I thought Jane was being cruel to us, next… straight in with the one minute poses. I steadied a range of media at my finger-tips and focused my eyes solely on the model to the exclusion of the sketchpad. In charcoal, red pastel, and brush and ink, and over the course of six minutes I produced the following.

Interestingly it wasn’t until we came to the two 2 minute superimposed sketches that I realised just how much easier it is sketch the human body in one minute than it is in two. In one minute you focus on the form and sketch without thinking. In two minutes, that’st two long to just sketch instinctively, but too short a time to fill in details, which is what you want to do. Some interesting results though…

A short break later – our last break – and Cameron’s rather defunct cello comes out (I believe he’s now donating it to the school). Now comes two longer poses of 25 minutes, and I choose, like last week, brush and ink and wash as my medium. The first, is good, but is not great…

…the last one, I am happy with. The lighting was strong and interesting. The fingers and the face nd the neck all casted strong shadows. I like this one. What do you think?