"Elegance in Motion" exhibition at The Strand gallery

I haven't had much time to post here lately but some interesting posts are coming very soon I promise, fresh from the London's Notting Hill carnival and a Drawing on Location meetup I attended this Saturday with a bunch of friends.

In the meantime, I would like to talk about "Elegance in Motion", a friend's exhibition coming up very soon in Central London. 

My friend Poppy Waddilove is a young talented artist and fellow life drawing attendee whose work will be on show at the Strand Gallery on the first week of London's Fashion week, from the 9th to the 14th of Septembre.

Before disturbing Adrian Dutton's Life drawing class with the smell of Turpentine and the sound of aggressive brush strokes, Poppy studied Fashion illustration at the London College of Fashion after which she decided to dedicate her time to work on Fashion Illustration and Paintings in her Bethnal Green atelier.

Poppy has already exhibited at different galleries in London: Salon Sixteen, Artica gallery to name a few, but this will be her first solo exhibition so make sure you visit the Strand Gallery, 32 John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6BP to admire her work and maybe buy a piece or two before the beginning of Fashion week! 

I already know which piece I want!

Something different

Tonight I was part of a pretty unique monthly Life Drawing event. Here is a tease, more to come.

My process

This is definitely not the kind of technique I would recommend to beginners but if you are interested, here is my process when using Carré Conté.

Now that I have a bit of experience and several month of intense practice, I tend to start from one part of the body, usually the head when the model is standing up, and make my way down to the feet. This way the most important part of the drawing is usually done, before the minor ones.

Beginners should probobably not work like this and instead use the "Encajar" method which involves starting from a blocky overall shape which is gradually redefined. Check out that great Lavender Hill Studio video where the method is explained.

For that specific pose and because I am using a Carré Conté charcoal which can't really be erased, I had to start from the left just to make sure I don't smudge the drawing. I am right handed by the way.

As you will notice, I didn't finish the foot this time again. Face, feet and hands usually take an awful lot of time, probably around 10 minutes each so I tend to skip the feet when pressed by time.

I hope you will find this interesting..

Comparison

For obvious reason, we are not allowed to take pictures of the models but Adrian posted that one on the public Meetup website so I thought I could post this here.

It is particularly interesting as the picture was taken from pretty much my angle.

In that pose, the model's face wasn't visible so I decided to change the pose slightly so we could see an eye and the noze. I ran out of time unfortunately and had to quickly finish the legs so they are much skinnier than the actual model and I wasn't able to address that really long elbow. The hand was also a placeholder as I didn't have time to draw the fingers. Shading was done afterwards.

Toby Mulligan - one minute demos with two hands

Dear readers, sorry I failed you. It appears that I didn't respect my promises!!!

In my last post about Instagram, I said I would keep posting in here but instead, for the past few weeks, I spent most of my time posting on ... Instagram!

What Instagram lacks in traffic tracking or flicking ability, it makes it up with the rewarding experience of having random users from all sort of background/industry liking your work. Ok it is still the honey moon period and I might end up hating Instagram in few month but for now, I am really enjoying it.

Having said that, Blogger remains the best place to post interesting links so here is a great video and article I just found in the CassArt newsletter few days ago.

Check out that really cool video where 2012 BP Award selected artist, Toby Mulligan, shares with us his process when drawing 1 minute poses using all sorts of medium with both, left and right hands!!!

Great Toby Mulligan demo and interview:
http://www.cassart.co.uk/blog/beware_toby_mulligan.htm