Throwaways are Keepers

1/14/16 Sailor Nagomi brush pen (20-min. pose)

Usually I think of the one-minute life-drawing poses as throwaways, like the first pancake (or in this case, the first 20): They’re intended as warm-ups only. This morning’s model had such dynamic and expressive poses, though, that the one minutes were among my favorite drawings today (bottom of post).

I’m in a groove with my favorite brush pen duo: a non-hairy Zebra and a hairy Sailor fude Nagomi (see Tuesday’s post for the details). They give me just enough fluidity for speed while being thick enough to keep me from getting fiddly with details. The water-soluble ink is a bonus for fast shading.

To mix it up, I brought along a Strathmore toned sketchbook to use with a colored pencil and a white pencil. Although I enjoy being able to put in highlights as well as shading on toned paper, using dry media on 10-minute poses felt sluggish; I couldn’t seem to get the leads to move fast enough. I switched back to a brush pen for the last 20-minute pose (top of page), and it felt just right again. Maybe next time I’ll save the toned sketchbook for a 20-minute pose.

1/14/16 Graphitint and white pencils (10-min. pose)

The best news of the day was that Gage just scheduled short poses on Monday mornings this quarter, which means I can attend regularly for a while! Being able to go three times since last Thursday reminded me how much I enjoy life-drawing practice – and how much I had missed it (my punch card showed that I only managed to get there twice last year).

(If you’re not a fan of my life drawings, don’t worry – I only do this during the bad-weather months. As soon as it’s warm and dry enough to sketch outdoors, you can bet I’ll be back on the streets again.)

1/14/16 Sailor Nagomi brush pen (10-min. poses)

1/14/16 Zebra double-sided brush pen (1-min. pose)

1/14/16 Zebra double-sided brush pen (1-min. pose)

1/14/16 Zebra double-sided brush pen (1-min. pose)

1/14/16 Zebra double-sided brush pen (1-min. pose)