BDSM Holy Mountain Temple - Session 1 & 2

Well here is an interesting Life Drawing group. The Holy Mountain Temple, which is a BDSM dungeon as their main business. On Monday evenings they hold a life drawing session. Each week they pick a theme to help the models get into character. My first sessions theme was Humiliation. While the theme was really good, I think the models could have used some more direction. Holy Mountain Temple has only been doing this for about 3 months so some are fairly new I'd assume. More practice and Zaynab who runs Holy Mountain seems open to suggestions for improvement.

The idea may seem tacky to some. I really enjoy seeing two models in outfits and a suggested theme to bring some extra life into life drawing. The props are of course great! Seeing a 50+ year old man on a spank bench is pretty amusing.

One thing I would enjoy and I think would assist in the models getting further into character would be aggressive music playing too. It might be worth filling the atmosphere with additional sounds to accompany the theme.

Session two had the theme of Bullying. The two models did a great job. The woman there tonight (I forgot her name) had done traditional posing previously. She had wonderfully dynamic poses. The men so far have been good but a little stiff (eek, bad pun) and new to the craft.

I've brought a very small sketch book to each of the sessions. It's been a long time since I've done any life drawing that small. Very cramped but to my surprise, some turned out rather nice. The shots are all placed out of order. See if you can guess which one came from what session to see if I did my job right.

FDW - Session 18

Rough session; lots of mini heads.

FDW - Session 17

Well finally back at the Figure Drawing Workshop again. Between holidays and my car door randomly staying frozen shut, it was hard to make it there the past few weeks.

This session I tried to focus more on getting the face, torso, and pelvis structures aligned properly. I find that my faces have a hard time pointing in the right direction. Simplifying these masses into boxes help orient the features better later. Ron Lemen suggested in his video to use the top of the forehead along with the chin to finding the parallel lines that converge to form the initial orientation for the head box. That tip has been helping.

FDW - Session 16

FDW - Session 15

I recently picked up "J.C. Leyendecker", a newly published book on his work. There are so many beautiful illustrations in here. I can't get over his "chiseled" understanding of form, structure, and value. Every painting is like a Greek statute that you could reach out and feel. He does this with such precise brush control, fallowing form to reinforce the structure and illusion of space. Joe was also very adamant about not using photo reference; always used models (and was in love with one for his whole career.)

This has me pondering some directions I'd like to take when I move into painting at the Figure Drawing Workshop. I'll start out as simple as I can by using only black and white oil paints or possibly guache. Focusing on matching value and using brush strokes with form. Doing this for the longer 10-25 minute poses will pose a challenge.

FDW - Session 14

Few sessions worth. Some good, some bad. One of the recent models complimented me on my likeness and sense of form. Nice to hear that from someone who sees lots of artist in the city constantly. Trying to give my drawings more sense of weight and spacial depth. Also trying to keep my mind on not going to dark on skin tone shadows. It's easy to press down too hard when trying to refine an area. Practice, practice, practice.