Friday 9 July 2010

Ghost Hunter designs

These are some designs I did for a mock project called 'Ghost Hunter'. The project was a part of a concept art course run by Leo Sandberg at the University of Gotland last summer. Leo is an amazingly multifaceted artist and a great teacher. It was a privilege to be able to learn from him.



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Leo Sandberg - Link
University of Gotland - Link

Thursday 8 July 2010

Recent Life drawings

It's been a while since I last did proper life drawing and it's hard to find classes in the summer, but I felt a strong need to get back into it so yesterday I splashed out on a slightly more expensive class than the ones I've been to in the past (previous post).

I've been trying to move away a little bit from the construction method à la Glen Vilppu. Vilppu's method is excellent for drawing figures from your mind and I'm still using it, but I think there's benefit in learning more approaches to drawing.
I need to give my mate John Aggs a great thanks for getting me Henry Yan's figure drawing book. Henry Yan has been a great source of inspiration for how to use charcoal, as has Nathan Fowkes.









My favourite from this session is probably this last one. It was one of the shorter poses, 5 mins, but I think enough information is suggested to make it readable and the pose ended before I could screw it up too much. When given longer time there's more of a risk for over-working the drawing.
I find it difficult to get the value relationships right. It's very easy to make something darker or lighter than it should be. I've heard that squinting is the trick but it's hard to see the right things.

Now that term is over it's become quite difficult to find cheap life drawing classes in Cambridge. The class I caught yesterday is run by Mark Rigby and it was unfortunately the last one for this summer. The next batch of classes start on the 8th of September. The class was held in St Barnabas Press on Coldham's Road. The building is a printing facility, mostly for artistic prints, and they also offer small studio spaces for artists.
These classes aren't cheap - £17 per session, but materials and easels are provided and the sessions are fairly long (3 hours, with a short coffee break). This particular class was not taught but Mark also teaches at the Hills Road Sixth Form College, and those classes are more structured.


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Mark Rigby's Life drawing classes - Link
Hills Road Sixth Form College art & design classes - Link
St Barnabas Press - Link