The 10-Minute Sweet Spot

2/8/18 Jennie (brush pen)

Life drawing sessions at Gage typically follow a standard format of pose duration: one minute, two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 or 20 minutes. The one- and two-minute poses are intended for warming up – the hands, the eyes, the brain, and the connection among them all. With those very short poses, I don’t think about proportion or much else other than capturing the essential gesture. With five-minute poses, I’m doing the same, but I have time to get out my waterbrush to wash the water-soluble brush pen ink I love to use, and I can indicate some shading.

1/25/18 Natalie (brush pen)

I enjoy doing the shorter poses, and it’s essential to warm up first. But I think many of my best drawings come during the 10-minute poses. After all those short poses, 10 minutes feel like a luxury, so I relax, focus more on proportion and form, and I have plenty of time for shading. Although I sometimes switch to dry media in 10 minutes, my favorite is still the brush pen with water-soluble ink. I think of 10 minutes as my sweet spot.

It probably seems like 15- or 20-minute poses would be even better, but for me, they often aren’t. The longer poses are an opportunity to use dry media, so I usually do, and then I start fussing around with details, or just fussing.

These are some of my favorite 10-minute drawings from the past few weeks.

2/1/18 (water-soluble graphite pencil)

1/25/18 Natalie (water-soluble colored pencil)