Life Drawing 2023 II: Mirrored model!

Finally some more life drawing this year!

Regular readers might recall I visited a new local life drawing group back in April. They are held monthly so I hoped to start going regularly. However they also have a monthly theme, and the last couple didn't appeal to me so much, so I skipped them, so only now have I found my way back at last!

This month's theme was an interesting one that I really liked the idea of, but didn't ultimately make much use of, which was mirrors. The model was set up surrounded by mirrors, which meant sometimes you got nice alternate angles of the poses. This looked cool as a setup, and in theory would mean either you could pick from drawing multiple angles, or drawing them all at once. Alas from my particular spot it didn't really deliver many interesting combinations of reflected poses. But I liked the concept a lot, and at least one of the drawings I did draw from the reflection rather than directly. I did a very quick sketch of the set-up towards the end of a pose I'd got bored of:

As with my previous visit to this group, we started off with a series of very quick two-minute poses. I really enjoy this sort of drawing, and cramming lots of them onto a single page. I don't think this time I got one of my better multi-pose compositions going, and was initially struggling to capture the correct scale of the model's head!

We then had a couple of five-minute poses, which I also drew together. I'm more pleased with this composition, and feel it captures the essence of the mirroring arrangement even if it's not actually drawn from a single pose! Although the blue version is the one time I drew from the reflections in the session (except for that quick sketch above).

A little later with longer poses (I think ten or fifteen minutes), I combined another couple. I was really enjoying the blue pose in this pair and was a bit disappointed it timed out before I got more done! Whereas the green pose I wasn't enjoying at all (that's when I did the set-up sketch). But at least as a pair they again have that nice sort of symmetry like the pairing above.

The other poses, below, plus the image at the top of the page here, were all ten or fifteen-minute ones, which is about the sweet spot for what I like when drawing unless I'm really into a particular pose.

This particular model had a really nice nose that I somewhat struggled to capture but enjoyed trying. I was quite far away so it was tricky to get a really good sense of the exact shape. She also had the most amazing cheek shape, and lovely eyes too; which I think you can see in all my longer drawings I had some focus on.

Apparently, it was her first time modelling. I really enjoyed the poses she came up with, some quite interesting arrangements of her arms and legs that were a little challenging at times, and made from nice compositions.

So there we go. I'm hoping next month's theme is another one I fancy giving a go, as I really like this group, it's got a nice chilled vibe and meets in a cool space (an old church).

I've added all these latest drawings to my 2023 page on my Life Drawing section, where you can also find all my older drawings.