a short while back i heard on radio 4's front row a review of life class, a short series of lunchtime life drawing sessions on channel 4, with artists maggi hambling, gary hume, humphrey ocean, john berger and judy purbeck... i didn't watch the original broadcasts but the subject came up again today and i found that the programmes (made by artangel) were still on channel 4's 'watch again' 4OD... so i watched, i listened, and i drew for about two and a half hours... and this is what resulted (all done in a small sketchbook with fineliner pen)..i chose to watch maggi hambling's drawing class first, as she's a voracious drawer...
first up was a few warm-up exercises of 2-3 minutes each; the model had a very chunky physique...
these two life sketches are about 2 minutes each... i couldn't get into the sitting pose, but the model had an intriguing s-shaped standing posture... maggi hambling made a good point about the correct easel position, to have it positioned slightly to the right if you are right-handed (and vice-versa), so that you don't draw awkwardly across your body... i have always told students students this in life classes, as it minimises distortion, your field of vision and arm movements are unrestricted, but do they always listen..?
then, for the long pose, although at about 15 minutes it was short...i smudged the pen marks with a damp finger, ink pen is perhaps not so good as charcoal for conveying muscle tones... next up, a 25 minute class with the artist gary hume..
i was looking forward to gary hume's life class, as it seemed refreshing to have a contemporary artist take a class, rather than some dusty old school type... i was disappointed, and so was he... the life model struggled to maintain a clearly difficult pose and gary started off by saying let's use any old paper as it's the first drawing (there were no warm-up exercises this time)... strangely, in these programmes, although you hear the tutor talking as they are drawing (half the time i wasn't listening, i was concentrating), you don't actually see them draw or see the work as it develops... gary hume made all the right noises with the charocoal, looked for the pattern, the negative spaces, but in the end he actually said 'there is so much wrong with this that i might as well start another one...' clearly, channel 4 didn't do a second take.. i think that he was attempting a very minimalist clean line in his work (as in his paintings), but a stylistic approach ended in disaster (you really do have to draw what you see)....
sorry gary, your drawing really was a bit rubbish...next up, a half-hour masterclass with john berger...
the first pose was for about 12 minutes, and although i found the dark background helpful, the shadows merged so much that some edges were indistinct...... the model was a dancer and had a very androgynous physique, with curious stomach creases... john said let yourself go into the confusion, explore the bodyscape, by making analogies with the landscape, trees, branches...
i really enjoyed the drawing the second pose, again about 12 minutes, although i think the right thigh is a little too long... he said to think in terms of bridges, hinges of the body (it all about forgetting it's a person, it's volume, contours.. analogies really do help)... john berger finished by saying next time go out and draw, clearly, he's a nature lover...next up, a life class with humphrey ocean... one long pose of about 20 minutes...
i always find these sorts of poses uninspiring, the body is slumped, it sinks into the mattress... i found her feet difficult as they were in shadow, and the picture quality on the playback was quite fuzzy (you have to remember that you are not looking at a life-size figure in these classes, it's just a small picture on a screen)... i really liked humphey's relaxed style of teaching and what he said all made perfect sense.. such as really look and take your time (but humphrey, i only have twenty minutes!!), look as if seeing for the first time, it is better to pretend that you have not seen it before, and if it goes wrong don't be afraid to change it, don't stick with the first version.. drawing in ink pen makes it more difficult to change things but thats why i quite like it, you take risks, you trust your judgement, there is no turning back, every mark is deliberated...and lastly, a short class with judy purbeck, an artist with nine years experience of teaching life classes in london...
i really wasn't that happy with this drawing (about six minutes) as i felt i couldn't work it properly out on a small scale (i was using an eight inch square sketchbook)... and i didnt feel the languid style of pose worked with a male body...
this was a better pose, again about five minutes.. i found the left hand difficult to change as i had gone in too early with the dark shadows, any new lines i added just made it even more clunky...
judy purbeck gave us a tough pose to finish, a twist in the hips and lots of foreshortening in the left leg...and only about fifteen minutes to work it all out..! again, i felt that drawing in a small sketchbook didn't give me enough space to define the subtle contours and tones... i noticed that our shot (the camera's view) had much more foreshortening than from judy's drawing position... her drawing was like a rolling landscape...in fact, she talked about looking for landmarks, key points on the body to help with seeing and mapping out proportion, such as the line from an elbow, the knee, a toe..would i recommend this programme if you were learning to draw the human figure? probably not, as all sense of volume and space is lost on a monitor... it's good in that it provides a preview of what life drawing classes and life drawing are like as an activity... sure, there are those who snigger, it's a nude, but if you can suspend your belief, relax and just see the body as an interesting form like any other object, it becomes quite easy over time... yes, it's a challenge, every viewpoint and posture makes for a brand new image, lots of intensive lookingat creases, shadows, undulations, spaces, sketching out and then re-working (even in michelangelo's drawings you can see corrections), looking for errors and changing (but not totally erasing) them, all those wayward fine lines and minor adjustments add life and spirit to the drawing... as maggi hambling said in the first programme, photography is inevitably a dead thing...