Friday, November 18, 2011

Life drawing

Life drawing took place as scheduled and was wonderful.  Drawing is something which can render me completely absorbed and blissfully happy but which for long stretches of time I just don't do, and then trying to get back into it is difficult.  Most of what I produced was unmitigated rubbish; if I didn't know that I was once capable of reasonably competent figure drawing I would have been discouraged, but by the end, from about six or eight poses and drawings I did one which I was able to put aside and feel not displeased with, and C, the tutor, came by and looked at it and asked if I wanted him to fix it, so that seemed like a mark of approval anyway.  It's got a lot of faults which are evident and I don't need to catalogue, but it's got some good bits too, and I reckon at the end of ten sessions I should be turning out acceptable work. Using charcoal is a sensual delight it was great to be reacquainted with too. 


The model was lovely, about my age I guess, an artist herself and very still and strong.  She held some very interesting and difficult poses which she mostly chose herself.

Bring on the next one (who will be pregnant, they tell us).

We had a discussion as to whether posting this here was OK, and whether I shouldn't post a NSFW warning but Tom, who's not without a Puritan streak, said he's never heard of anything so silly so I hope he's right.  I brought it home and put it across an armchair to look at and the next thing I knew Molly was trying to snuggle up to it, hence the creases.
~

Now we're off to eat kig-ar-farz for the first time ever. This is, as far as I can gather, a version of pot-au-feu with the addition of a large buckwheat dumpling cooked in a bag in the broth.  It is a speciality of the Leon region of north Finistere but we have located a restaurant not far from here where they cook it once a month, and tonight's the night!  

Have a good Friday yourselves.



15 comments:

Rosie said...

I have sampled kig-ar-faz several times, and didn't need to eat for a week or so afterwards. It is rather...filling

HLiza said...

Oh i didn't know you draw..and really good at it..but well you did say you're an Art person..that explains! I think drawing is a way to relax the mind too if you can do it..I can't!

marja-leena said...

Pleasantly surprised to read that you've done life drawing in the past. It certainly is a skill that needs to be kept up... don't I know!

Fire Bird said...

this is lovely

Rouchswalwe said...

Oh, Lucy! I like the strength of your lines. Just this week, I received a 40% off coupon in the mail for a nearby art supply store ... now you've got me thinking I should go to purchase some charcoal and paper!

Catalyst said...

First writing. Then photography. Now drawing. Is there no limit to this woman's talent?

Roderick Robinson said...

I dimly recognise the pleasure of dropping into that comforting hole you mention. Drawing - which I have done only rarely - is so much more absorbing than writing where you're constantly required to scrabble through your consciousness, make yourself more conscious in effect. I envy you your ability to do both.

I also envy you your kig-ar-farz. Although this is clearly a dish that can be labelled Regional Cuisine, I have for thirty years tried to discover a French phrase that covers the wider range of what Brits tend to call comfort food - the daubes, the casseroles, the stuffed cabbage which I was so delighted to find in Paimpol and which, as family shorthand, I refer to as cuisine bourgeoise a phrase that is obviously meaningless to the French. Home cooking? The trouble is the phrase, if it exists, is becoming more obscure since that type of cooking becoming more and more rare. Perhaps the answer is to pull up sticks, live in France and make it a lifelong search, doing it restaurant by restaurant instead of embarking on a top-down approach. Good luck with the buckwheat dumpling for which, I would say, arrive early so that you avoid that most depressing of French words (more often on wine lists) - épuisé.

christopher said...

I certainly hope that you do not receive any negative remark on your nude. It is just fine with me, of course and I remark, "not bad, not bad."

I draft for a living and I have drawn in a cartoon style in "black and white", capable of letting reality slip. Once I took a magazine cover of Eisenhower (this was in 1968, I believe) and I took as long as I needed. When I was done I had Eisenhower in pencil on a piece of paper but it took so long I never repeated the effort. That was long before I became a drafter.

You are one of the best ones, girl.

Anonymous said...

Lucy, sometimes I read your blog and pretend that I'm living your life, even for a day or an evening. Today is one of those days. Thank you for such lovely posts. I always feel calm after I read one.
- alison

Unknown said...

I loved life drawing, and never used to get tired or even want to break off for tea. What was interesting was how my attitudes to evolving a style of drawing evolved from the detailed and rather precious, to very simple outlines unshaded and limited in detail. I was interested in the sharpness and cclarity of your approach.

julia said...

NSFW?

Setu said...

I hope you enjoyed your "kig ha farz" (people from E Brittany think it is "kig ar farz", but it is a mistake, please tell them ;-). I took part in the preparation of such a meal last week... well, I only peeled carrots (being from Cornouaille, I was just allowed to be a kitchen boy, Leonards were the chefs, of course). An association of which I am a member was welcoming members of our Spanish daughter association, we invited them to a huge "kig ha farz", they brought us delicious mazapan specialities as a dessert. Great moments of conviviality!

Lucy said...

Thanks all.

Rosie, BB and Setu - I shall write at more length on kig-ha-farz in another post!

ML - I haven't ever done nude life drawing before, only clothed figure drawing at school, which is actually harder, as everyone says, because you have to render draping and cloth as well as getting the form right, so this was a wonderful new experience for me, and one I can't wait to reprise!

R - charcoal is wonderfully cheap, of course, but you need big paper to work on with it and most important of all is fixative, otherwise the work quickly gets smudged and ruined. Oh, and a good putty rubber or two. To me it almost felt like sculpture, working a lot with fingers, smearing and adding and then carving out again with the rubber. Delicious!

Mouse (and Chris too, I guess)- Not suitable for work. The idea I suppose is that you don't want your boss looking over your shoulder at pictures of naked people. I really don't know how delicate other people and their cultures are about nudity and it seems to me there's an immediate perceived difference between a drawing or painting and a photo of exactly the same subject, the former being more acceptable than the latter. All if which is a potentially interesting subject I suppose but not one I'm particularly qualified or concerned to talk about!

Marly Youmans said...

Yes, bring on the drawings of models, pregnant or not. I always enjoy the idea of you wandering about France with your pencil and pad camera, now and then resurrecting talents that have lain fallow for a whiles. Your sensibility is always attractive, whatever you pick up to explore.

the polish chick said...

it' lovely, your drawing.

i also love losing myself in making something, whether it's painting or drawing, and i do it far too seldom. i gave myself the blessing to take the summer off (to cap off the last several years i also had "off" apparently) and was going to force myself to start again in october. did i? don't ask. i most certainly did not. too busy computering away. i think this little item in my lap is the one barrier to my ever drawing anything again.