Tonight we had one of our regular models, Lisa (or possibly Melissa?, I might have previously misheard her name). Anyway, she’s a good model – and was in her chops tonight. What makes a model good? A feel for interesting poses – and of course – the ability to hold them. What makes for an interesting pose? Well, a little bit of twist goes a long way. It’s not necessary, but if over an evening of about 15 poses there’s not some definitive variety of movement in the torso I have a hard time. (You’d be surprised, some models just move their hands a little for a new pose and think it’s sufficient for generating interest!).

So Melissa was on. She has exceptionally thick hips and thighs (the elephant woman!) and always wears her glasses (the glasses lady!). And I had a good (chakra) night too – the tactile warmth and energy of chalk and pastel on the paper fed into my searching circles, allowing the figure to slowly emerge. I definitely had some throw-aways but amazingly, many of the drawings turned out well. The final drawing of the evening is the featured image here at the top of the page. From my position, it involved direct foreshortening – which is always a challenge  – but tonight I just let the chalk follow the sensuous curves. Hooray for bio-feedback!

Five fifteen minute figure studies. Conte pencil and conté crayon on tinted pastel paper. 32.7 x 50 cm. or 13 x 19.75 in.

Four four minute gesture studies. Black charcoal on tinted sketching paper. 35 x 50 cm or 13.75 x 19.75