Dreads & tats

Gaby, Charcoal A3© Sue Pownall 2013

Whilst in the UK I went to 2 more life drawing classes. As with drawing Terry I took charcoal to draw with as I'd had such fun before. In the 2nd class, I also tried using watercolours directly without under-drawing. I think as a side-effect of drawing portaits for my Festival Faces series, with both models I ended up drawing portraits during the long poses. Gaby was so pleased with my drawing of her that she took a photo of it. Below are other drawings of Gaby.

Gaby reclining. A3 Direct painting with Payne's Grey watercolour

Gaby A3 watercolour.

The day before I left UK, I got to draw Rachel and her tattoos again. I drew her before in September 2011 and you can see those drawings here. With the first long pose I drew the charcoal portrait below, which I think is a fair likeness. Then did the rough full body drawing. Can you tell I was pre-occupied with what I had to do before my flight the next morning?

Rachel Charcoal A3 © Sue Pownall 2013

Rachel in charcoal A3

Finally,  I drew another portrait of Rachel as a concerted effort to focus and relax.

Portrait in sepia pencil on A3

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Terry

Terry A3 Charcoal © Sue Pownall 2013

 One thing I like to do when I visit my parents is to go to the Monday life drawing class, which has been running for years. I first went in December 2009, I attend several times in 2010, but last attended a class in September 2011. Knowing I was going today, on Saturday I decided to draw with charcoal, not something I've done in a very long time, so bought some ready for today's class. I was slightly nervous having not taken a class in so long and because of my choice of medium. Consequently, I did the three 5 minute warm-up sketches using a Conté sketching pencil and then happily used the charcoal for the longer poses. Usually I like the precision of pen and pencil and was surprised how much I enjoyed experimenting with the roughness of charcoal. By the way: Despite the photos here I didn't use tinted paper, but white and so the contrasts are greater.

A3 charcoal © Sue Pownall 2013

During the 3 hour class, I completed 12 drawings of which the two here are my favourite. I feel it was a very successful morning and I hope to go again before I return to Oman. What do you think?