life drawing class

[jamesmc]

Most excellent!

hmm, reminds me. I'm out of eggs.

[Ron Duke]

Yes, nice firm, round, voluptuous apple.......

[masque]

I have removed the apple, it was inflaming to many people. Less importantly I've had a go at improving the dreaded hand which got a lot worse during the day as I played with it though I think its better, but not perfect, now.

[Egg Bramhill]

The hand looks far better now as does the lighter skin tone. The folds of the sheets are excellent. How about adding a blur to the background? To me the easles etc are to sharp.

[parahandy]

removed the apple Cor! ( English joke)

[masque]

I’ve fiddled with this a bit more, pushing the background away to some extent and adding a little blur as per Eggs suggestion to simulate depth of field but I must admit to having lost interest in the drawing.
One thing about a life class, is that beginner or old hand, what has never come out of there is anything that even approaches looking like a photograph. Each person stands or sits in front of whatever is being drawn and produces their own interpretation of the subject matter and I’m no exception.
As soon as I tried to transfer a pencil drawing to the computer screen I find I’m trying to end up with something that does looks like a photograph and that’s a bit disappointing because I’ve realised that while I don’t want a photograph I keep heading back in the direction of a photo like result.
I think it’s a matter of starting again in order to end up with ‘something’ completely away from the photo-real (ish-ness), whatever that is.

[jamesmc]

I like it, it shows form and fashion, perspective and interpretative skills.

My mother is the artist in my familly. I didn't receive any of her talent.

One thing she said to me when she was sketching the family cat with one of my school pencils is that art catches the essence of things. I did not know what essence meant at the time, so she explained further. She gave the example adding spice to a food. She said it was not necessary to add a rock of salt, or a whole plant of basil to get the intended flavor or essence of the spice.

Years later I pulled out the cat sketching, all properly framed and categorized as treasure as it provided one of life's lessons. I asked her why she didn't put anything around the cat or enhance the cat with colors. She told me that the cat was a solitary animal and she wanted to capture just that.

The cat was in one of those cat poses, laying down, slightly curled up with its head held up as to observe my mother drawing him. That cat was completely satisfied to sit there and be sketched by my mother. When the cat arose and left the room, my mother exclaimed, the sketch was done.

Indeed, the sketch was done. The cat had observed the observer. I suppose in a philosophical sense if my mother had tried to be more than the observer, that is to start adding more to a scene than the essence, she may have felt as she might have distorted the scene

The cat didn't care that my mother had trays of acrylics, oils, chalks and seemingly infinite supplies of lead graphite pencils. I suppose the bowl of fruit wouldn't care about what tools the artist might employ, if it could actually do that.

The cat was unaware of the medium on which it was being captured. In my mind's interpretation I made the supposition that the cat did not actually care that the sketch was on stationery rather than an official sketch pad purchased in an art supply store.

The raison detre of an event such as the 'cat pose' needs no further enhancing. How can we assign more than it is, lest we start assigning attributes that describe us more than our subject.