Drawing Group Work

We’ve spent our second winter in Spain with the drawing groups and it’s thrilling to see their skills sharpen each week … and to increase our own skills as clothed model and drawing guide! Over the years we’ve developed a pattern in our 2 hour classes that we’ve found brings on the quickest results –

15 minutes speed drawing of 30-second poses

a 30 – 45 minute long pose (or 2 shorter 20 minute poses)

an interesting still life that sometimes generates groans at the challenge

It’s been a privilege for us to meet and work with such fabulous people who have become valued friends. We hope to share their drawings and as they send us their images we’ll open a new page and have a gallery of their work. We might even persuade them to send an early and a later drawing to show how they’ve progressed.

The morning group at the Mirador.

 

 

 

 

The afternoon group at O21.

Drawing at 021

 

 

 

 

 

 

Six views of a long pose; graphite and conté. Note how each person has their own style and to preserve this individuality is most important.

Six Views

 

 

 

 

A sketch study – few lines and yet character is so well captured.

CANDLE IN THE DIVINE WIND Part 6 – the finished work – Image and video

CANDLE IN THE DIVINE WIND, watercolour on Arches cold pressed, 356gsm paper, 102 x 66cm (40 x 26ins).

CANDLE IN THE DIVINE WIND

A Video with music – Miles playing soprano saxophone and our own back track interpretation of Elton John’s Candle in the Wind (or Goodbye England’s Rose) – can be found on YouTube

http://youtu.be/SHBaRMbZHRo

Please feel free to forward, tweet, facebook or share – Diana still engenders passionate discussion and response and this art work is open to any individual interpretation.

CANDLE IN THE DIVINE WIND Part 5 – Japanese characters

We have a box set of brushes for Japanese ink painting – let’s be more precise – in a small rectangular box covered in printed silk, 8 different brush heads nestle in shaped indentations of red velvet and 2 bamboo handles are clasped to the inside lid against their own white silk background. Hard to resist a foray into Japanese ink painting with such beckoning but we resist the urge and use the set for our Western style of painting. The brushes were perfect for painting the Japanese characters in CANDLE IN THE DIVINE WIND.

This is the image of the study for those characters followed by an explanation of their meaning:

These Japanese characters form the word ‘kamikaze’: ‘kami’ means ‘spirit’ or ‘god’ and ‘kaze’ means ‘wind’ and so the usual translation is ‘divine wind’. The use of the combination of these words goes back to the 13^th century when the term was given to major typhoons that dispersed invading fleets and saved Japan from enemy occupation.

This is the penultimate post of this series. We have shown the main elements of the painting now and in our next post (aiming for next Sunday) we will reveal how these elements fit together in the finished work, CANDLE IN THE DIVINE WIND.