FishBottle

After a 24 year break I went back to life drawing The last one I did was in Oxford in 1987. This time I went down the street to OCAD for some 3 hour instructorless drawing sessions (thanks Marty for getting me back into it!) I don’t know what took me so long. It’s really invigorating and very satisfying. So different from drawing from thin air. I used to be snobbish about drawing from real life, as if it was cheating. Now I’m happy to make any mark on a piece of paper, no matter the source, but this is a satisfying challenge.

At first I found the short poses (which used to be my favourite) really challenging and frustrating, sometimes only getting half an arm drawn before the pose changed. Then I think I found my rhythm.

8 to 13 Minutes seems to be the ideal pose length for my attention span.

I run out of patience after that, but I remembered that I don’t have to work on the same drawing, even if it’s the same pose.
So sometimes I’ll also do a quick portrait,

or a more cartoonish version,

or something even looser.

Maybe I’ll work up the patience to do a single drawing for an hour or more. Regardless, it’s been great so far.


The energy in the studio can be palpable, you can feel people trying to ‘get it right’ or at least get something.
By the way, at $3.33 per hour it’s about the best price you can pay for any activity in this or perhaps any city.