Cast Drawing

Here we have a cast drawing that took roughly 4 hours to complete. It is in sanguine chalk and wax pencil and roughly 8x10". Against the big taboo this one is from a photograph but only until I can source a real cast for myself. I had one of those days (which happens a lot) where you wake up and haven't a clue where to start. During the week I purchased some Glen Vilppu drawing videos, I like him quite a lot, he draws open handed (which I still can't do) and teaches in a similar way to how I have been taught. So I didn't want to do a still life this week, I wanted to do something related to the figure.

One of my biggest problems right now is how to structure my home learning. I can't afford more than a couple of classes per term and yet I need to progress, it's very hard to know where to go. I don't think I need weekly tuition so much now as I've been given plenty of teaching to go on but I do need regular practice. Added to this pressure is the fact that my actual job can really drain my energy, I am often very tired when I get home during the week, this is before I mention there is a baby on the way in 11 weeks :) One thing  I am going to do is look for some weekend figure drawing classes in my home city of Edinburgh. Hopefully that will give me a chance to experiment a bit more with what I am learning.

This drawing was useful to do. I discovered that it is best to lay down the chalk pencil first and then use the waxy version on top to give your darkest darks. These pencils are quite permanent and don't erase as easilly as willow charcoal. At my last class I had a problem where I was rubbing off the charcoal from my drawing with the palm of my hand. This caused a problem because just when I had got some of the drawing about right, I then accidentally got rid of it later on causing me too keep chasing my tail. I love the way you can constantly keep knocking back willow charcoal but I'm starting to think that sometimes something more permanent is not necesarilly a bad thing.