Life drawing and more - a week of art in Ottawa

Another round of "Woo!! Naked Wednesdays" - more appropriately known as 'Life Drawing at Sandy Hill' - in cold, desolate, wintery Siberia Ottawa last Wednesday. I was pretty disappointed in my results at this session, but whatever. I blame it on the cold, desolate, wintery climate of Siberia... my fingers were frozen and frostbitten to death. In fact, if digits reacted to cold like other certain appendages, they'd have shrunk to embarrassing pre-pubescent sizing.

Sketches done with the Pentel Pocket brush pen, Shin-han Touch markers, and a bit of white chalk.







While disappointed in my figure drawing, I was happy with how my package of film to the lab turned out. I guess I should just stick to sketching animals.

Life Drawing - Harcourt House - May 2014

Couple of results from tonight's life drawing session at Harcourt House in Edmonton. I'm not at home, so can't do proper scans of the originals - these are photographs of the sketches instead. Maybe it was me worrying about some personal family stuff, or maybe it was just boredom, but I really wasn't feeling it tonight. These two were okay, but the rest of my results were rather ehhhhh.





Pentel Pocket Brush, and Shinhan Touch markers, on Bee Paper's Bogus Recycled Sketch pad.

Life Drawing & Valentines Day

Back from Ottawa. Apparently there was a stabbing/ homicide right by my office downtown yesterday, which maybe isn't the best way to celebrate Valentine's Day. But of course, neither is falling down a flight of stairs (hitting EVERY STEP) and spraining your toe, which I managed to do in rather clumsy fashion. Gotta keep life interesting somehow, I guess. Frick.

Anyways, here are the scans from this week's lifedrawing session. I'm not terribly happy with how they turned out, but that's cause I suck at drawing. There were folks that did full on detailed watercolour paintings of the model's faces that just blew me away. One day, I hope to get to a tenth of that skill level.









And while we all SHIT ON how commercial Valentine's Day is, Anita and I have taken to celebrating it in non-commercial ways. Rather than join the 'anti-establishment, I'm not gonna do ANYTHING to express my love' troupe, we've gone the route of accepting V-day as another means to show an extra bit of love and attention to each other (over and above all the things we do normally every day). Sappy, I know. Sorry. But ooh, look! ZELDA!

Life Drawing at Sandy Hill - Sneak Peek

Venessa and I took in the Life Drawing session at Sandy Hill in Ottawa tonight. I love how they run this weekly session. Always filled with great, friendly and welcoming folks, and the models are always top notch. Plus it's only 4 bucks to drop in. If you're in the area, you have NO EXCUSE for NOT going on Wednesday nights.

This is a sneak peek (photograph) of one of my sketches. Will post proper scans of all sketches when I get home later this week. Stay warm!



Note, the dude is so far off to the left because there were two models in the frame, but I don't have the skills to even finish sketching one before the pose time is up, let alone get both done.

Life Drawing at Sandy Hill

Took in the weekly life drawing session at Sandy Hill in Ottawa this past week. Fun times, even though I suck at drawing. All sketches done with a Pentel Pocket Brush ink pen, chalk and conte.











Completely unrelated, but for those of you in Calgary, and looking to shoot some film this weekend, contact me about Sunday - we're looking to do another edition of 'Digital Free Day.'

Life Drawing at Harcourt House

A recent life drawing session at Harcourt House. I wasn't feeling the poses this time, so there was a bit of goofing around instead of sketching. Regardless, these are a few results that I liked - Pentel Pocket Brush, White Chalk Pastel, and Conte Crayons.
















This last one is a 100% crop of a scanned page. I liked the look of the fibrous texture of this paper, interacting with the ink and chalk media.

Life Drawing - Calgary Edition

I finally found out about some life drawing groups in Calgary! One of them held a multiple model session last night at Eau Claire's community room. See below.













These next four were done on an 18" x 24" sketch block, which is too big for my scanner, so I had to photograph them, hence they don't look nearly as good here than they do in person. Come visit, I'll show you. :)

Life Drawing - Harcourt House - Mar. 7/12

Life Drawing. Harcourt House. Edmonton. Nuff Said. Actually, no wait. The session was interesting in that the first half was filled was terrible country music in which every song but one was about drinking whiskey. And then after the break, they put on a folksy CD in which Dean and I quietly commented on the grade 7-ish lyrics. Then another dude declares aloud to the rest of the class "This music SUCKS." To which the session's organizer replies (after giving him the stink eye for a few seconds), "Well you're drawing the singer." Ooops.

Click to see Dean's sketches here.














Pentel Pocket Brush, Copic Markers, White Chalk Pastel, and Conte Crayons.

Life Drawing at Sandy Hill

Another life drawing session at Sandy Hill Community Centre in Ottawa. I bought a set of conte crayons while we were in Asia, so broke those out for the first time. Hadn't played with conte in about 15 years, so was mildly surprised by how much fun they were to work with. The top 4 pages were 20 - 30 minute sketches, while the bottom 3 pages were 90 second gesture drawings.

Life Drawing at Sandy Hill

I was in Ottawa this past week for work, and took the opportunity to hit up the local weekly life drawing scene at the Sandy Hill Community Center. Having only previously done this at Harcourt House in Edmonton, I wanted to see how other cities ran their sessions. I was impressed by the large turnout here (I'd guess in the 45 - 50 people range), and also by the relative low cost (only $4 bucks for the drop-in session). There were no tables, only chairs and a couple couches, so you either had to bring your own easel and sit in the back ring, or else, prop up your sketchbook on your lap. This wasn't nearly as inconvenient as I thought it would be, and made for a very good use of the limited space to house everyone. The pose lengths included 5x 90sec. gestures, a 20 min, and then 3x 30 min. poses, with breaks in between long poses for the models.

If you're interested and live or happen to be in the Ottawa area on Wednesday nights, check them out. Friendly folks, great atmosphere, and the chance to get inspired by the amazing talents of the various artists there.

Examples below - Pentel Pocket Brush, Chalk Pastels. 3x 30min poses, and 1x 90sec gesture.









And lastly, for a quick look back to all my 'life drawing related posts, click here.