Every Wednesday evening, most months of the year I go to life drawing sessions. I get to hang out with a group of wonderful artists for 3 hours and the time is well spent. There’s nothing like drawing the human form to sharpen your drawing and observation skills!
I spend days as a tutor for DesignMatters advising students, but Wednesday nights are my chance to be a student. Our life drawing sessions don’t have an instructor, we all work independently in our own style and media but are there for each other to offer suggestions and bat ideas around.
We start with quick gesture drawings, (you would be surprised just how fast a minute goes by when you are drawing!)
In our sessions we gradually increase the time of each pose, from those quick gesture drawings to 5 minutes…
… then 10 minutes …
to our maximum, a 20 minute pose. 
Having to look, really look at the model and get what I see down on paper makes me focus and the 3 hours just fly by! Some evenings the drawing goes well and others, not so much, but I always learn something from the process.
I know I will be a student forever,
Catherine
ravensthread 