Life drawing online, 12 October 2021

Just a fortnight on from the end of her last 5-week online life drawing course, Joanna McCormick was back with her next term. Once again, I was honoured with the job of providing poses for week 1 of 5, this time on the theme of ‘shading’.

With autumn nights drawing in, it’s no longer certain that natural light will be sufficient for a 4pm to 6pm slot. I set-up an extra table lamp by my pose space as a precaution, but also realised I could use it to cast varying shadows as we progressed.

After reviewing some excellent drawings of dauntingly sublime poses from last term’s final session, Jo gave a demo of various shading techniques. We then got under way with five poses of 1 minute, two of 3 minutes and one of 5 minutes.

Slight longer poses of 10 minutes and 15 minutes followed – each time I repositioned my lamp with the hope of enlivening any shadow contrasts. Next came the 20-minute close-up portrait slot. For this shading session I was asked to wear… shades! 🙂

Aside from the general unusualness of posing in sunglasses, the weird aspect for me was being able to see clearly. I always take off my spectacles when modelling but my shades have prescription lenses. I could focus at last, but only on my own four walls.

For the final 30-minute pose, I got back into character with a trademark smörgåsbord of lines and angles. My left foot kept me guessing as to whether it might slip from the chair at any moment, but ultimately behaved. It had been a fun session.