The Long Pose 20th Feb 2021
Oil on Canvas Panel 12" by 16"
Life Model @Fra_beecher
2021

Oil Painting -Canvas board
Limited Colour Palette - Titanium White, Ivory Black, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Yellow Pale Hue plus a touch of ultramarine & Walnut Oil
Acrylic Ground & Underpainting Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber
Conté sketching pencil

Dear All,
Happy New Year 2021!
We had a little break over the Holidays and we have been back for a couple of weeks now settling in to our routine of our weekly Thursdays Night Life Drawing Group and getting ready for 'The Long Pose' next Saturday 23rd January 2021. See bookings below for details, and new 'drop-in' and concession options.

Last week we looked at artist Emma De Polney and took inspiration from her energenic use of inks, wax and fluid materials. I recommend taking a look at her work-

https://www.wychwoodart.com/artist/emma-de-polnay/

https://www.wychwoodart.com/shop/original-work-on-paper/reverie-ii/

The Materials I used where-
Pen and Inks, Wax, Brushes, Watercolour and some watered down household bleach to use with Quink Ink (btw only Quink Ink works with Bleach) and watercolour paper and 2 Jar of water.

Our Life Model - @twisted.hazel and you can follow them on Instagram. 

The Long Pose 3 & 1/2 hours
Sunday 13th Dec 2020
with  Life Model @Fra_Beecher

Acrylic, Gold Acrylic, and Oil on Sized Paper.

For a full list visit - drawing and painting with various mediums page

To see full descriptions and concessions, click an option-

New Videos

'The Long Pose' of Andrew. From Sunday 15th November 1pm till 5.30pm

Poses- 3 x 2 mins, 2x 7mins,  1 x 20mins 1 x 40mins (approx.)
We looked at Jean Hippolyte Flandrin for inspiration.
This weeks Life Model was, Edmund.

Link to the images and more information about Hippolyte.
https://framemuseums.org/hippolyte-paul-and-auguste-flandrin/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Hippolyte_Flandrin

The online Thursday Night Life Drawing group and the Mid-Month 'Long Pose' sessions have become a small community of creative adventures, who support and share their work with each other.

We always have a short 'chat and review' session at the end of each session, which is lovely and post our work in a private 'Cluster' gallery each week and today some of our members have allowed me to share some of their recent drawings for everyone to view.

Many thanks, to Carol, Pauline, Sarah and Sue who have allowed me to share these fabulous Life Drawings. There are so many to choose from, 317 from the last 5 months, all of them are wonderful.

The ones I picked are a bit random looking at quick sketches some from longer poses, every drawing has merit in it own right without judgement. All are a spark of Art from the observation of Life Drawing to set alight flames of visual delight. : )

Many thanks go to our Life Models Fra Beecher and Andrew, for their inspiration and interpretations of the references of the human form, from ancient statues, renaissance through to contemporary artists.

Enjoy!

Penelope Rose

Https://www.SuMelville.com

Su is also a professional artist and workshop leader specialising in 'Art and Wellness' and Pastels.

Icons and Statues

Following on from last week's Male Greek and Roman Statues we looked at a few Female Icons Statues some from Greece, Roman and Middle East. In my search, I found this article which in many ways contrasts or complements last week's article.  Last week our focus was on the whole body and inspired by some of the images I had chosen and those that Andrew knew himself such as The Boxer and the Kouros.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/13/absent-female-genitals-art-repeated

Icons and Statues

1. Clay figurine of the Canaanite goddess. (Who is probably Asherah early female God, known about in Syria, Israel, Egypt... I am personally very interested in the history of Female Gods and Asherah 'Queen of Heaven' was worshiped up to about 1000 BC until monotheism and patriarchy started to form...the history is fascinating)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-yhwh-became-god-1457732366

and for further reading down this rabbit hole - https://www.ancientpages.com/2017/04/12/lost-forgotten-goddess-asherah-queen-consort-sumerian-god-anu-ugaritic-god-el/

2. Three Graces

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Three_Graces_Louvre_Ma287.jpg

3. Artemis (because she rocks!)

https://greekgodsandgoddesses.net/goddesses/artemis/

4. Greek Terracotta Figure of Seated Aphrodite
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/greek-terracotta-figure-seated-1871482179

5.Statuette of reclining nude goddess 1st century B.C. 1st century A.D.
https://www.thecityreview.com/worldbetween.html
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/759563

Introducing our new model Edmund...

Greek and Roman Statues

This week we were inspired by a variety of statues. Our Model, Andrew also had rather good knowledge of these classical sculptures and model poses from his own knowledge to. In particular we had a little discuss about 'Kouros', for an informative read on the subject take a look at-

'THE ORIGINS OF THE KOUROS By REBECCA ANN DUNHAM'
http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/UFE0010838/dunham_r.pdf

Some our sparks of inspiration-

Ares Borghese is a Roman marble statue of the imperial era (1st or 2nd century AD)
By After Alcamenes, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15759965

Discobolus in National Roman Museum Palazzo Massimo alle Terme
circa 140 AD
marble

 Agasias of Ephesus

 Poseidon (Zeus), 46 B.C.

 Bronze Figure from the Artemisius at Cape Sounion

Guerrier combattant, dit le "Gladiateur Borghèse" (Fighting Warrior, called "Borghese Gladiator"), c. 100 BC
Marble

The Dying Gaul, also called The Dying Galatian (in Italian: Galata Morente) or The Dying Gladiator, is an Ancient Roman marble semi-recumbent statue now in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. It is a copy of a now lost sculpture from the Hellenistic period (323-31 BC) thought to have been made in bronze.

Statue of a Kouros, 6th century B.C.
Marble
76 2/5 in
194 cm


Interesting article-
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-ancient-greek-sculptures-small-penises

Charcoal sketches of Fra. For the first session of the month, we proceed with short and long poses following our model's lead. Next week I will be giving a short demo with a few tips and inspirating from an artist. 

Negative drawing with putty rubber and charcoal follow by a pastel colour. 

This week we took a page or 2 out of 'Quentin Blakes Unseen Art' (book and exhibition). I recommended using pen and ink and watercolour washes. Below are some of my drawings from the evening. Wonderful poses from our model Fra who was given the book a few weeks ago for her birthday which became our inspiration for the session.

Seeing the other side of Blake's work is a real treat...
Here are 2 blogs by people who visited the exhibition last year-

https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2018/11/19/100-figures-unseen-art-of-quentin-blake-house-of-illustration/

https://susanjoylu.com/2019/01/16/100-figures-the-unseen-art-of-quentin-blake/

 Sylvia Sleigh for this week's inspiration. 
https://www.artsy.net/artist/sylvia-sleigh

"Feminist artist Sleigh is best known for her paintings of women, and for reversing stereotypes of women by putting men in poses and positions which traditionally depicted women. Sleigh said of her work, "To me, women were often portrayed as sex objects in humiliating poses. I wanted to give my perspective. I liked to portray both man and woman as intelligent and thoughtful people with dignity and humanism that emphasized love and joy."