After a couple of life drawing classes with Jake Spicer, I've decided to visit the Draw school he is running in Brighton. Since it only takes me an easy hour train ride to get there, I thought it's a nice opportunity to complement my studies with a day of life drawing sessions.
For this first visit I opted for an untutored day of 2 separate drawing classes. The studio is a cozy space where students fill out the space in a circle around the model. I've enjoyed Brighton's change of pace compared to London, and the drawing atmosphere reflected that: a very relaxed, communal feeling immediately took place.
The first session was a Lunchtime Life Drawing nude figure. Over the course of 2 hours we had a variety of short, ~5 min poses and some longer ~20 min ones.
I've altered between graphite for short croquis and charcoal for longer ones. The model had an interesting hair volume, with a half-updo and shaved sides, which I really enjoyed putting down. This was also the first time in a long while where the model was very close to me, a mere meter off, so perspective was something I had to give special care to.
The second class was a long clothed pose, and many people worked on it in oils and other demanding mediums as it continues for a couple of weeks. I've opted for pastels and a color paper and promptly fell in love with it all over again.
The simplicity of the dry medium and the ability to build the layers on top of one another is just such a (excuse the pun) draw to me. The moment I got home I've put a large box of Rembrandt pastels in my ongoing Cass Art basket.
