About Face Studio Classes

Tonight I attended the About Face studio classes that are held at the Columbia Museum of Art in Columbia, SC. The space is really huge and I felt really at home immediately. Our model was great too. He had a really angular face...a bit Rubenesque (is that a word?) and was a great challenge to draw. He had a long chin so it was fun working on the proportions. I worked primarily in charcoal. Other artists there were working in a wide variety of medium from pencil to oil paints. I attended both the portrait class (6-7:45) and the figure drawing class (7:45-8:15). The classes are longer respectively however you can attend either. Here are the fruits of my labor:


The first drawing of the night...my warm up.


My second drawing of the night. Some of the folks seemed surprise that I was doing them so quickly. If it's not a commission I find it difficult to stay on a live subject for too long without moving around or doing multiple drawings.


I got a little restless from doing just the face so I did a quick body sketch. I wasn't able to scan the entire drawing however I managed to get the gist of it.


This is my final portrait drawing of the night. I wanted to concentrate more on the strong lighting moreso than anything else as well as his angular face (most interesting!) A full frontal (I was bored with the side view) really gets the starkness of his features and that wonderfully elongated chin...lots of room for experimentation there. The figure class had begun during my time drawing so I ventured over there. I only managed to get a few gestures and a 15 minute drawing on a 25 minute pose done before I called it a night. These I won't post here and in the future I'll probably stick with the portrait class. This was all in all a lot of fun and "good practice." I'm not as rusty as I thought I was...Well until next Tuesday :-).