The Best Figure Drawing In Toledo!

As far as I'm concerned the best figure drawing sessions in town is at Paul Geiger's Tholipon Press Studio in Toledo Ohio! I was there Wednesday evening and I produced some nice pieces. I should be giving all the credit to the model. He was excellent.

Again I sketched on newsprint paper using vine charcoal and General's 2B charcoal pencils. I'm really enjoying this medium. The session starts with a 5 minute pose so I need to work quickly, the vine charcoal is great for this because it's soft and I can quickly draw a gesture sketch of the figure, just a quick general shape of the pose. As soon as I feel I have all the basic shapes of the model I switch to the General's charcoal pencils and begin to add more detail until the time runs out. I did this for the 5, 15, 30 and 60 minute poses, the more time I had the more detail I added. By the time I reach the 30 minute pose I'm warmed up and in the drawing zone. It's a blissful feeling.

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Portrait drawing of Michelle

I attended the Al Hyter Portrait Group last Saturday morning. It was our model’s last day. The models pose four to five weekends in a row so you get to know the model. Michelle did an excellent job holding the pose still and was fun to talk to during breaks.

As always I got up as close as possible to the model to get as much detail as I can. There’s one thing that drove me nuts on this pose and that was the hand. Drawing hands is tough; getting them right is even harder. I feel I got it right on the larger image above. I might have sketched it too big, but I think it works well on the model when drawing from this angle.

I had a good time producing these two pieces. Plus Bruce, the coordinator, played some good tunes, and I had some good laughs with the other whimsical artists. I will miss this group when I go to NY.

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