M.A.S Weekend Course

This week I have a few examples of work done from the weekend classes I am attending. The Black and white charcoal drawing is most recent. It's not quite as finished as I would have liked but it does represent some progress on my part. For example I am now using willow charcoal comfortably and able to stand at an easel and draw- I used to hate easels. It was a tough one to do, a real battle back and forth but I was trying trying out various things with this and they all worked. I was seeing things happening in front of my eyes, knocking back areas, ballancing the whole picture, recognising the errors and not panicking (all too easy to do).

The paintings don't quite work but I'm not going to be too hard on myself because this was the first time that I have painted in about 15 years and also the first time I've attempted these techniques. We were drawing with large Filbert brushes and the model was moving quite a lot- I found this quite hard. About 3/4 through each of these I started to get the idea, so I'm going to try it again with the benefit of hindsight and see how it goes in round 2.

But right now I'm content, you learn to be pleased with the progressions that you have made, whatever they are and even if they are small; I don't think it's likely that you would master these techniques first time. It wasn't so long ago that I was in that first weekend class and came out with nothing. I'm starting to get it, I just need to keep going.