Life Drawing Saturday Workshop

Yesterday I attended a full day Life Drawing workshop. I enjoyed components of it and got frustrated with other parts. The model herself was excellent and did some excellent poses and while I enjoyed the exercises to loosen up, I was hoping for more longer poses in the afternoon as planned so that I could get stuck in, however the class wasn't that well structured and things that were supposed to be covered and to happen just didn't. So while I found it worthwhile overall, I did feel somewhat frustrated at the end of the day and that I didn't get the chance to really get stuck in.

I also like to blend with my finger, it is what I do naturally and I like the effect. However the tutor didn't like using fingers to blend and didn't in her personal style so I felt like I was getting told off when I did use my fingers. I appreciate learning from people who have their own techniques and styles and you can learn something different from each teacher, however I found it frustrating that if we used a technique that we liked that she didn't then pretty much we were told to wipe the pigment across the page and start again. That is one of the reasons I felt I came out with a whole lot of part-finished drawings that I would have got a chance to complete had I not be told to start something different half way through the post.

The tutor also liked the figure to touch at least 3 sides of the page so that it was cropped each time. I spent so long last year with the TLC DVD exercises getting to the point where I could fit the person on the page, so it was interesting to have a different point of view. And in fact the top drawing with the whole figure, I was told half way through to stop and only do a cropped part bigger, but in that case I said I would just keep going with what I was doing as there was 10 minutes left of class and once again I would have been left with a couple of partly completed drawings. Even then I didn't get it done and I might develop it further in a different format.

We did heaps of these exercises, when we had to keep the charcoal on the page and the model would move every 5 seconds. They were fun.

Here is another one that I started after being told to stop the previous one which had the whole body on the paper. So ended up having less than 10 minutes to work on this so didn't get far at all.

So overall, I wouldn't be interested in attending another workshop with that particular tutor which is disappointing as her work is fantastic and I did learn some things from her. Unfortunately though I felt that we were being directed to work in the styles and techniques she liked rather than being encouraged to develop our own styles. It was frustrating when you spend 20 minutes drawing a pose that you actually quite like and then the tutor grabs a piece of handtowel and wipes it all across the page. That is the first time I have been dissatisfied following an art workshop and my frustrations in the end were more dominant than the parts that I enjoyed.