Life Drawing Workshop

In this workshop Life Drawing was reintroduced to us as a group. While I was much more confident than I was with the still life workshop, I was still apprehensive. A mistake in proportion is more easily noticed in the human figure and face, rather than in an object. So I decided to approach it as I did with my still life drawings, with drawing exercises such as continuous line drawing, blind drawing and gesture drawing.

Using a range of material such as pencils, markers and pens, we split into smaller groups. In these groups we agreed on times of poses and took turns being the model. It was not only a great drawing exercise but also gave us an opportunity to work as a group. I find that I feel as a teacher I should be in control, organised and independent. This served as a good reminder that there is a support system in my fellow student teachers and that it is a great place to go through ideas for classes.

The drawing progressed well and it was interesting to see the styles of my peers. It also helped me get into the mindset of my pupils, while I may have had hours in this workshop to draw, my pupils only have 40 minute classes. Patience with them as well as time management will be instrumental in organizing a successful class.

Once we each had a series of gesture drawing we decided to select a longer pose. This takes more concentration as the drawing will have more time for detail, however the full figure must be depicted, as well some of the background so that the figure isn’t floating on the paper. I found I was proud of my drawing and happy to see that over the workshop my standard of drawing was coming back to its former place.

I must bare in mind that I am familiar with the rules of proportion, and that I have years of practice behind me, this is quite new to my pupils and it is important not to overwhelm them and to not discourage them.

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17th September 2018

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Drawing: the Face

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