One Year of Figure Drawing Practice

Before the Upstairs Studio co-op disbanded, I used my little studio to do some "long pose" (4 hour) work with one of the figure models. That was about a year ago. Here is an example of a drawing from that period.

Looking back on it now, it is an ok drawing, but not very lifelike.

During my recent fun with our figure drawing group at University of Alaska, we were able to have long pose sessions (3 hours) a few times. Here is my first for 2013:

I saw some improvement, the figure looks more natural. But I didn't like how I failed to use the available space on the page. I vowed to get those drawings bigger!  My next effort pushed the edges nicely.

Same model, very different energy.

The school year came to a close, but we had time for a final session with one model in one pose for 3 hours. (Don't worry, they get breaks every 20 minutes. These models are truly wonderful. It takes strength and discipline to hold a pose.) Here is the last drawing. You can see that my work on hands helped me on this one.

All the drawings shown here are graphite on paper, except the third on the page, which was done with charcoal pencil on paper.

It's a great opportunity to work with a live model. Looking over these 4 drawings, I hope you will see some improvement. I encourage anyone out there learning to draw to seek out a figure drawing group and get some practice.