Last night was my 10th life drawing session since I started back at Swansea Print Workshop after a long break (see here) and here are the warm-up sketches. I’m aiming to improve my portrait drawing over the next year. There are two 5 minute sketches then a 15 minute one. I used a graphite block onto aContinue reading “Portrait Drawing: Week 10”
Category Archives: life drawing
The Process Of The Portrait:1
I carried on carving my little lino block portrait of one of the life models I work with at Swansea Print Workshop. I’ve done her hair and the outline of the main lines of her face, now I have to decide how I’m going to cut the rest. Lots of things I could do. Decisions…
For The Hour
This was the final pose for the final hour at the recent life drawing session at Swansea Print Workshop. I’d familiarised myself with the model’s face with a series of quick sketches ranging from 5 to 30 minutes. Then I had an hour to play with this pose. I did a 20 minute sketch (topContinue reading “For The Hour”
Focus And Concentration
The middle poses in my last life drawing session, 15 minutes each, are when I start to focus and concentrate. I’ve done the warm ups to get the gist of her face, so now I’m really looking at the structure, proportions and details.
Portrait Drawing: Week 9
Last week was the 9th session since I started back at life drawing at Swansea Print Workshop after a long break (see here) and here are the warm-up sketches. I’m aiming to improve my portrait drawing over the next year. The first is a 5 minute sketch, the second a 10 minute, using a graphite block ontoContinue reading “Portrait Drawing: Week 9”
Playing With Pattern
This is the final sketch I did at the last life drawing session of 2025 at Swansea Print Workshop. Although she has short hair, it is styled and I used my pen to create patterns. It’s given me ideas for how I might develop it.
Textures In Pen
During my last life drawing session at Swansea Print Workshop, I switched to a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen and started to enjoy playing with textures. This is a 10 minute pose onto vintage paper (no watermark).
Switching To Pen
For the last few sketches at the recent life drawing session at Swansea Print Workshop, I switched from my usual graphite block to a Faber Castell Pitt drawing pen. The graphite is great for tones and simple line work, but I wanted to get more fine details so I made the switch. I did theContinue reading “Switching To Pen”
More Time, More Accuracy
This is a 25 minute pose from my most recent life drawing session at Swansea Print Workshop. Having more time doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a lot more content than in a quicker drawing. This 25 minute pose doesn’t have much more than one of the 15 minute poses, but it’s a lot more “correct” –Continue reading “More Time, More Accuracy”
Trying Out Textures
Here’s the middle poses at my last life drawing session at Swansea Print Workshop , two 15 minute poses using graphite onto a good quality but reasonably cheap cartridge paper. I started to play with the texture in the model’s hair, she has a short yet fairly elaborate hair style.