The last week of June was spent at the Art Educators Summer Institute at the Hew Hampshire Institute of Art. In my previous post I wrote about the watercolor landscape workshop that I took in the afternoons. This post is focused on my morning life drawing workshop. I just can't say enough good things about the workshop! I never wanted the mornings to end.
The workshop was lead by Patrick McKay, who is also the Dean of Students at the college. Patrick is from Ireland, talks with a strong accent and has the clearest blue eyes I have ever seen. He was a very considerate and kind teacher with an understanding of the difference between teaching to high school students and teaching at the college level. He was always very positive in his instruction and considerate of the fact that we were all teachers and most of us have not had much tome for figure drawing. I think I was the only person who had done any figure drawing over the past 10-15 years which I felt put me at an advantage.
We began with gesture drawings and then worked into a longer pose where we used our choice of conte crayon, charcoal, or pencil. I chose to work in conte crayon. I moved to a different location in the room so that I could draw from an interesting pose. This pose was a real challenge; I think I redrew the leg and knee three times until I had it big enough to account for the foreshortening. In the end, Margaret's face is off a bit proportionately; there is a bit too much space between her eye and her ear, even though I brought the ear in closer than it originally was. We worked on this pose at the end of the first day and then again at the start of our second day.
The next technique was a new one that Patrick introduced us to, it was drawing with a 2" brayer! We began by practicing how to use the brayer on brown kraft paper and then Margaret posed for us as we tried an actual figure drawing with the brayer. We used acrylic paint that we watered down, especially to get the lighter values and to lay out the basic figure. I found it was best to paint the acrylic paint onto the brayer with a cheap 1" household paint brush as the paint was slick which made it difficult for the brayer to pick up evenly. This image doesn't show the brown paper very well.
Finally, we had a long pose and I was able to get 2 drawings started during the time available. These were both done on 22" x 30" watercolor paper. I simply changed positions to get a different point of view, and then came into the studio in the evening to finish up the background. I love this new technique and look forward to teaching it to my students this fall!
I can't say enough good things about this life drawing workshop. Not only was Patrick wonderful, but our model, Margaret, was perfect. We had Margaret as our model for all four days of the workshop. She could hold a pose so much better than most models I have worked with. In addition, she had a very classical look to her which was accented by the classical poses that Patrick put her in. That was another thing....I had never experienced a time when the teacher posed the model and then adjusted the lighting until it was perfect. This certainly made for better drawing possibilities.
One evening I came into the studio and used a mirror to draw this self-portrait. I used the brayer technique with acrylic paint on watercolor paper. It was a fun project and I managed to actually capture the way I look.
In the end, I hated for this workshop to come to an end. It was a week ago today that I flew home from New Hampshire and I am wishing that I was still there!
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