Life drawings

I went to a life drawing session last week, the first of this season. I felt all rusty, but after one and a half hour (e.g. just before the session finished...) I started to get a grip of things and my drawings started to shape up a bit. I did these two seven-minute poses in my Moleskine, and played around with the background afterwards.

I find that there´s a tremendous difference between models, some are easier to draw, and some take some time to get used to. It´s as if your eyes have to adjust to how the model´s body is built. It´s fun though, no matter if it´s a model you like or not. There aren´t many other moments during a normal work week when I am so totally concentrated and in a "zone" as during these life drawing sessions. It´s a bit like I imagine meditation. After a drawing session it´s like waking up to the real world again, as if I´ve been somewhere else for a while.

13 x 21 cm, pencil, coloured pencils and Copic marker airbrush on Moleskine sketchbook pages.

Concert drawings

I went to a concert last night, and brought my Moleskine with me (yes, I´ve bought a large Moleskine sketchbook, even though it´s not very useful with watercolours - I figured it´s time I work in some other techniques too, so I might as well try one of these and see what all the fuzz is about).

Our seats were slightly above the orchestra, which gave some excellent views of both audience and musicians. I filled two pages and added some coloured pencil when I got home.

I can really recommend drawing at classical concerts - people sit still for very long, and as long as you don´t sit way down in the back of the concert hall, you´ll have plenty of subjects to study.
13 x 21 cm, Lamy Safari with Noodler´s Lexington grey ink, and coloured pencils in Moleskine sketchbook.

Going grayscale

I´ve been busy busy busy at work the last few weeks, as always when a new semester starts up. This means, of course, a bit less time for drawing right now, but I try to do some little thing almost every day.

I drew this guy yesterday when I was in town to run an errand. He stands there every day, all day long, holding a sign pointing to a restaurant situated in a back street off one of the main shopping streets in Stockholm. I wonder what perception of time a guy gets after standing there for a few weeks? I´d go crazy, but I guess there must be tricks to get through the day with a job like this... The drawing would have been just about 100 % more interesting if I had included his sign, but unfortunately there was already a drawing on the sketchbook page, right above this one, so I skipped it.

I decided to use the drawing anyway to make some value studies. I scanned it and printed out four copies and tried out a few different solutions with five Faber Castell Polychromos coloured pencils, ranging from black to very light gray. I´m way out of my comfort zone with coloured pencils, it´s been years since I´ve used any. Bought a bunch of Polychromos a while ago to give them a try, and I like them, as long as I don´t have to use them every day.

The original sketch contains no shadows or colours at all, which gave me the freedom to try any solution I wanted. Very interesting way to work, I think I´ll have to experiment with this some more.

7 x 10 cm, Lamy Safari with Lexington Gray (scanned and printed four times), coloured with Faber Castell Polychromos coloured pencils.