I have started to teach a new 10 week course on drawing at the Camden Arts Centre. The course is titled ‘Approaches to drawing’ incorporating a wide variety of media and subjects. I have put a lot of emphasis on the fact that a good drawing doesn’t necessarily mean a good likeness and the key to learning to draw is much more about quantity rather than quality.
My current drawings are still predominantly figurative but I follow the Urban Sketchers group with much desire. I am not tolerant enough to go out in all weathers but I look forward to a time when I can go out with a sketchbook and draw the world around me, urban or rural.
I managed to put down my studies on a couple of occasions and leave my MA to one side momentarily to make a couple of drawings:
Not the greatest of drawings I know, but I enjoyed the freedom so much and being outside in my surroundings. I felt surprisingly comfortable, my initial anxiety was people watching me draw and thinking I was strange but once I started drawing I was totally absorbed. As it was a sketchbook and part of a lesson plan, I felt relieved of the pressure of having to make a ‘good’ drawing, my intention was to learn how I was to go about teaching this to other people.
I initially sketched these in water-soluble pencil and when I got cold I went indoors and emphasized some of the lines and added ink washes. The Urban sketchers group are quite strict about completing the whole drawing on site but I am inclined to disagree, sometimes it’s just not practical and I don’t see any harm in using your artistic licence.
As I result, I have put the watercolours to one side for now and turned my attention to ink, not massively different but different enough. I use it in combination with charcoal, the wet of the ink deepens the black of the charcoal and seals it preventing it from smudging. I experimented with a self portrait:
And went on to use in my life drawing classes:
But I sometimes swap it for pastel and crayon:
And a bit of watercolour:
