Foreshortening Female Figure Drawing

Hi. Last night I attended Paul Geigers Studios open figure drawing session in Toledo, Ohio. I had a great time! A great crowd showed up, I met cool new artists, and I produced some nice figure drawings.

Here are two pieces from last night. The small drawing on the left was from a series of 5-minute poses that started the session. The large drawing on the right was a 25 minute pose. It's a classic reclining figure drawing pose from models. I've sketched this pose many times and it never gets old. It feels like it never gets any easier to draw either.

A lot of foreshortening here. It's tricky from the start because the image is wider then it is tall--believe it or not. It's such an optical illusion. If you measure from the outer edge of her right hand to the outer edge of her left knee, that length is longer than from the top of her head to the bottom of her toe. it's so important to get these dimensions right for this figure drawing to work. Foreshortening is always a good challenge.

Last night's model was new at Geiger Studios but experienced from other drawing studios. Every pose she created was nice and did a great job holding still. Thanks, Paul, for finding good models, keeping the drawing space warm, and for the cheese, crackers, popcorn and wine at break time. I also enjoyed the classical music during the first half and Beach Boys music during the second half. That was an interesting music combo.