Life Drawing & Hand Studies

Apologies for the dreadful image quality, I am still trying to wrangle my camera into submission and clearly my Photoshop-fu is too weak to actually get photos to cooperate.

The first drawing of the class, which is pretty bad. My life drawing is rather rusty - haven't drawn from life in about a year - and I tend to need to do one or two dreadful drawings at the beginning of a drawing session before I can work properly. I don't resent this, it's just how I work. I'd have appreciated it if we could have worked a bit faster so I could have some more decent drawings, but it's not a problem.

As can be seen, I am infinitely better at drawing nude figures than clothed ones. I have never done clothed life drawing before, so this one is naturally better. Clothes tend to confuse me - my eyes trip over the folds as I try to move my eye around the figure - so my nude drawings tend to come out more successfully. Still a bit wonky, especially around the feet and shoulders, though.

Last drawing of the night, again with a clothed model (hi Sammy!). This one is far better than my first shot, particularly around the face and shoulders. The limbs confused me, so she looks more suited to be QWOPing rather than the austere monument her face suggests she should be. Ah well.

The centre one of these (the 'begging' gesture with the thumb towards the viewer) is my favourite of these studies. I always find being gentle with my work yields the best results, yet I'm often too impatient to be gentle. Definitely something to work on. The others aren't dreadful, but still somewhat clunky.

The top one of these isn't bad bar the wonky foreshortening on the thumb - what made me think that pose was a good idea? The bottom one is my other favourite;