Drawing day

Thursday is drawing day at Newcastle Art School, for my class anyway. Since I am totally addicted to both taking photos of my camera phone and blogging at the moment, I thought I would share my first proper day with you. This is the view from outside our drawing studio. It's not very often that people get to see the tops of the buildings along Hunter St, but there are some amazing facades up there.


In the mornings we do Life Drawing, which was from plaster cast rather than from "life" today because we're baby drawers, still learning our techniques.

These were the first two sketches that I did, which the teacher wasn't really too fond of, but I wasn't either so that's fine ;) My drawings tend to be very styilsed, I draw an interpretation of what i see rather than drawing what is really there, so I really loved experimenting with charcoal, line weights... still a bit dodgy though, so I'll spare those for now.

The nose that I drew.

The afternoon class is General Drawing.

This is a contour study of the marble bust on the table. I'll quote what I wrote down as the teacher explained it:

Contour drawing is a delicate study of the detail of the object, a linear description. There is no shading or form, only lines that describe a change of plane or direction or detail.

Draw as slowly as you possibly can, know everything about the object. Give each line your full concentrated effort so that you don't have to revisit it.

We tried this without looking at the paper at all (this guy) for a ten min sketch, then we sketched again for longer, looking at the paper for about 25% of the time. Then we sketched with our left hands (me not looking at the paper because I'm ambidexturous).

A book recommendation from our teacher Pete, apparently the BEST drawing book EVER... and having had a brief read through it over the break, I have to say it looks pretty awesome. Going to borrow it from the library first chance I get.... which leads me to my next news of awesomeness, the library there? Amazing. ALL art books *drroooll*

So yeah, that was my first proper day. Very exciting. Drama when I arrived home too, this was the view from my verandah. A house that was being demolished caught fire, no one was in there luckily, so I guess it just made things happen sooner.... very exciting for everyone in our street though, such a massive crowd of gawkers checking out the action. Sooo tired, off to get chinese food and chillax at Bennys. Guitar hero anyone?

-Emmeline