some figure sketches from january
cw: drawings of nude people with the three holy b's: boobs, butts, bush
i have been drawing figures on and off for several years but fell off from it since my local art school stopped doing weekly live model figure sessions. last month, i decided to get back into it and wanted to share with you some of my sketches and paintings so far. none of the models were live, so huge shouts out to quickposes and sketchdaily for its expansive library of reference photos and timer resources. i am very rusty but having a lot of fun.
the following set has a gouache background i painted and then black watercolor on the foreground. i spent 2-5 minutes on each figure.
all of my sessions start with a warmup where i set the timer to 30 seconds and increment when i feel like i remember what a human body looks like. if you're one of my fellow web developers, starting a session can feel like coming back to your computer after a week off and it seeming like you've forgotten how to code lol. the warmups are also a great time to try different media and supplies. my favorite warmups have been with water-based paint markers - mine are poscas.
i also enjoy large graphite sticks, they feel nice in my large, beautiful hands. i have tried glass dip pens in ink too, but i am struggling to get them to work for sketching. brush ink pens are my absolute favorite, and i've only just started using them for figure drawings last month.
surprisingly, i really have fallen out of love with alcohol markers. actually, i don't think i've every loved them, i just used to only have a set of turquoise copic markers that i brought to every figure session - i even used them in a live model session i attended in berlin! maybe i'd love them if i had 100+ of them like a lot of artists on youtube have, but that seems like 80+ too many markers.
i've been focused on candle-making this past week so i haven't done any figures yet in february, but i've set an intention to get back into it this weekend. several years ago i took a 3-day figure and anatomy course where we primarily used charcoal and i remember really enjoying it, so i just got a new newsprint pad and found my charcoal stash from that time. this month i'm going to focus on that as well as refreshing my study of anatomy - and i may even make the time to do go to some live model sessions again in the city. i'll share my work on here next month!
xoxo jenn
p.s. here's a good time to remind you that this blog has an rss feed and i have a free newsletter, since those may be ways you prefer to keep updated on my work. (almost) weekly, i've been streaming on youtube, mostly fiddling with my personal site and sharing my candles. i have some really exciting candle and art stuff coming up that i can't way to share.
