5 July 2022

Life Drawing with Silvia MacRea Brown

I attend life-drawing sessions with Silvia MacRea Brown on the first Tuesday of every month at Charleston. (I don’t think we have a session in January). Last year we had some extra classes in a barn (and outdoors in a closed garden) at Friston Manor.

We arrive before 10.00am and aim to start around then.

Unusually this time round we were convened in a semi-circle against one of the barn walls rather than the model on the podium at the end of the barn with its huge window and the potential problem of silhouetting and the distance from the model. 

There is always a warm up session. Historically this has been a series of short poses of around three or five minutes. The last two sessions, in an interesting change, we had a 10 minute session of continual movement. After this we have a series of slightly longer poses, sometimes coming from a threaded movement, but held for three minutes or so. And then, I think poses held for 10, 15 or more minutes.

I’m still learning what I enjoy and where I feel I am playing to my strengths. Today I took in a large whiteboard on which I taped lengths of backing wallpaper. This would give me a large landscape sheet on which to draw. I also used, for the first time, a box of children’s wax crayons. Working from left to right I then put down a series of rapid sketches, each taking around 10 seconds, or at most 30 seconds before I moved onto the next pose. The model was moving continually, albeit slowly. I’d give up on a doodle or sketch once the move had shifted too far for me to continue with it. 

I worked on three sheets. The second two didn’t go as well, upright didn’t work. And I feel I’d lost the rhythm of it by sheet 3.

I had another go doodling across the page at elbow height.

Over the day I tried a number of different things: pencil in a sketchbook, fine-liner in a sketchbook and returning to an apparent strength, wax crayon on backing wallpaper. 

In past sessions I have used an inkpen – exclusively. Or charcoal. I have moved away from soft pencils simply because they favour the long pose – at least 45 minutes, but in my experience, 2 or even 3 hours.

Above: Sketches (10/20 minutes) Fine liner on cartridge paper. Model: Frankie. Charleston (CC BY-SA 3.) J F Vernon 2022

Unusually, enabled by a spell of dry weather, and using  the space at the back of the house as a pop-up studio, I took some of the day’s work and transferred it to sheets of paper. I then, helped with some YouTube videos, looked at how to add colour. I’m happy adding a simple wash of colour to a fairly complete drawing, but I am yet to figure out the methods required to get paint onto the page without making a reasonable sketch worse. This will come.