Nancy
Posted: February 23, 2015 Filed under: Uncategorized 14 CommentsNancy is a hard model to draw. Her face is tiny and her features are delicate — like a pixie — so when I draw her sitting up, her head always looks too small. I was kind of happy to look at her from this angle, despite the foreshortening. The pose was 30 minutes and the paper is Canson Moulin du Roy, which has a beautiful, soft surface that I find ideal for life drawing. It’s much more responsive to light touches of the brush than Arches (which I’ve been struggling with for weeks) and those lost edges (where her hair goes into the shadow) are easier to achieve. I just read a bit about the paper and this is the quote I find on most websites: special mass and surface sizing allows even and easy pigment spreading and wet strength. I definitely will be using this paper again.
Shari Blaukopf's Sketchbook 
As always what I like in your work are your colors
They are zoo clean, I just love it
Bye bye
Renata
http://lesimages2renata.com
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Thanks Renata!
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Hi Shari — lovely image. Was that coldpress or hotpress?
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This is cold press paper. Give it a try!
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Well, I can tell you that you did a truly lovely job with this piece. Working credibly with such severe foreshortening can be a challenge, one which you met admirably!
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Thanks so much Tom. It was a pose I really enjoying trying to tackle.
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Shari, This paper Moulin du Roy was reviewed lately in the Pratique des Arts magazine. The comments were very good, as yours. Dis you find it in Montreal (L’Avenue des Arts on Victoria?) I would like to try it.
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HI Charles, I found it at de Serres. I’d love to read that article. Would I be able to find it online?
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Shari, I scanned the article and will send it to you by email.
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This is lovely Shari and shows how much you’re enjoying rediscovering life drawing. Just wondering if you now feel that 30 mins is the right compromise for you in terms of retaining freshness and spontaneity whilst still capturing what you want from the pose? Best, Tony
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It’s funny you should ask that Tony since I was thinking about that today. I much prefer a one-hour pose. I find that in 30 minutes, I have 10 to do the drawing and 20 to paint. That’s not much time. Our drawing group works by consensus, though, and I guess more people prefer the shorter pose. Our last pose is supposed to be one hour, but with breaks, it never ends up being that, so mostly we do three half-hours poses. It’s just not quite enough time to properly get things done.
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I like this composition… such an interesting, almost-abstract shape that you have constructed here. I would have probably liked to see the dangling left hand included… but, that the same time, I also like the way that it is cut off.
So, if you were doing this pose again, would you shift the body to the right to include the hand, or not?
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Thanks Ross. I guess if I had to do this again I might have tried to include that hand. But in the thirty minute time frame it’s so hard to do any planning. You look at the pose, in my case you think somthing like “Yikes, this is really hard, where do I begin?” and then you start drawing somewhere and hope for the best.
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Beautiful work, Shari. The delicacy of the tones and lines make the drawing so intimate.
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