Figure drawing class

Today we finished our figure drawing class where we made a huge pile of croquis and life studies. I really enjoyed the class and it was so instructive and I think I learned a lot! 

The lessons followed a routine where we first made some croquis (20 minutes and every two minutes our model changed the position, then break and again 20 minutes...) and after this we started the life studies where the model had the same position for longer time in 20 minutes sections.

I must warn you, there is a lot of pictures in this post but I wanted to share some of them with you. The first pictures are scanned croquis and after that there are some phone pictures of the life studies. The croquis are all almost the same size but I have picked up some of them so they look bigger.

(Click the pictures to enlarge)

First we did some basic "what you see" croquis with graphite pen

Then we painted only the shadows and tried to create the figures only by that

After the shadows we painted only the light 

Croquis done with ink and bamboo stick

Some 20 minutes detailed pictures

Then we first painted the main shadows and rhythm gray and then drew the figure with bamboo stick

And finally we combined the model with props and background

Then to the life studies. Today we had our feedback and we all exhibit our works and the teacher gave comments and made notes. 

Overall we did only 8 big studies (I did only 7 because I was sick and stayed home once) but it's so nice to see how they did get better by the end. Most of the drawing have been made with charcoal.

a study of a leg (the second photo was taken when we were making these detail drawings)

Detail of a face where only straight lines were allowed

Another detail

I'm so happy that in the Institute of arts we can continue making these figure drawings because it's something I really would like to learn and study more!