Trials of a Life model

A bitterly cold morning and the Life model is surrounded by electric fires 

and lying on a cushioned podium. 

Then the fire alarm goes off.

Is it a practice ? Do we ignore it ? No.

We grab what we want to keep safe but no time for coats and we congregate on the terrace in front of the coffee bar/restaurant. 

The tutor has waited for the model to grab a thin house coat, her warm coat and her shoes, which she is holding in her hands: she is barefoot. 

She said that this is the sixth time that this has happened to her !

Three cheers for Life models !

They are getting thin on the ground around here. For £10 an hour, soon to rise to £12, they are refusing to make the journey to Bracknell. 

This was a contrasting mediums exercise. I used acrylic ink, graphite and my usual hard pastels.

Whitefaced Woodland sheep

I don't think you'll find better looking sheep than this breed of supernatural grazers, who live on the blasted shingle meadows at Orford Ness, Suffolk.

This acrylic is slightly larger than an iPad and is not quite finished: I need more definition 

i.e. more darks but it is 100% better now the background has been changed to a sandy yellow.

I will be eradicating the wink.

The photo below is not the exact one I used for reference

 but I can see more of the snout on this one.

The painting below was done quickly as a dark underpainting, then painted over and it lost its vitality

but not all of it. The trick now is to reinstate the darks, eliminate the fussiness and then decide when it is finished.

I am quite pleased with this one.

Portrait of Claire

The colours are not true to life in these photos and neither is the rough textured 

appearance. In short, the portrait is better than it appears here :)

This top view was taken after one two hour session. 

My easel was directly underneath a bright ceiling light

 and so I was shocked to view it at the end of the session in a dimmer light and saw, again, 

how dreary and dismal my colours were. 

I hate the brown/green background but the likeness is good.

This is after the second two hour session.

I have brightened up the skin tones, changed the foul background colour

and neatened up the features.

 It is so useful to see both versions together because I can clearly see that the relaxed facial pose of the first has been replaced by a tighter expression.

Is this because I "neatened up" the features and profile  ?

Does the highlighted upper eyelid alter the expression ?

Have I lost too many shadows (under the nose, for example) ?

I'll have to look at the painting again to see if these failings are as obvious 

as the photos show.

Pastels or charcoal ?

This is a hard pastels painting (a drawing, really, 

but called a painting because it is in pastels) on white paper. 

I can see here that I am getting better with pastels, using several layers of different colours to tone down, define the form and correct mistakes. 

But that right buttock is waaay too bright.

Same model, same day.

Using a softer black pastel, not quite charcoal but easy to smudge.

The stomach is not defined: I should have spent longer on this one.

The tutor liked the use of flesh colour, white highlights and tiny touches of turquoise here and there.

I love a bit of turquoise.