Hanna in Lavender

We started the session out with quick sketching and lots of coffee. It's an interesting exercise, trying to capture a figure while carrying on a conversation (no posing allowed!). Drawing in the immediacy of life is an old tradition in the arts, particularly before photography; one of my favourites is Rembrandt's Old Woman and Child with Leading Strings. Try posing that! But when it comes to capturing life, he's always been my touchstone. (There are lots of other drawings of his over here, including his wonderful Lion and his quick take on a Nurse and Child.)

Well, I'm no Rembrandt, but that doesn't mean I can't take some of the same delight in just drawing quickly and responsively to whatever is going on. And like Picasso put it,"I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it."

So here's a couple from the warmups:





This is my favourite, though I made Shorty look way too small, and sort of fierce rather than totally moony...But if he won't sit still, that's his problem.



Then back to the studio for proper work. Hanna was quite taken with some of the NuPastels I picked up at NSCAD on Monday, so after blowing one drawing (colour-wise, palette-wise, placement-wise) I suggesested she pick the basic colours for the next try. One of which was a lavender I had never tried before; given my staid and conservative drawing style, another train wreck loomed. But it turned out ok, even if I didn't have a proper Easter egg (jellybean) blue for the fingernails. Must have been the pose.