Figuary 2020 - LIFE drawing

February is FIGUARY!  I have joined in on the FIGUARY 2020 challenge at Vimeo Croquis Cafe, doing life drawing from models on Vimeo.  It is an excellent way to improve on your overall drawing skills and it is FREE!

Often I can not make it to the life drawing sessions available in Edmonton (see Harcourt house courses ).   This is a great alternative way to get some instruction through the lovelifedrawing  instructors on YouTube, then you go over to Vimeo Croquis Cafe for the actual model session.  Unfortunately YouTube does not allow life drawing videos because of the nude models.  Vimeo however does and has some excellent life drawing sessions to practise with.  Posting your life drawing sketches also can cause some issues on Instagram and Facebook because of the nude poses.   (sigh - I would like to go into a long rant here about art / nudes post vs violence / hateful posts but I will withhold my views).

If you have any 'nude' issues than the tamer SketchDaily website has excellent animal and clothed people photos to practise on.  HOWEVER, I find it interesting that a number of the clothed photos on this site are of women in 'sexy' costumes and seem more degrading to women, than any nude models on Vimeo.  In one of my figure drawing classes at university, one of the female models refused to wear 'sexy' lingerie items, as she felt they were offensive to women and I had to agree - the lingerie seemed to create a more 'porn' feel to the pose. Rant over.

The time commitment is minimal as the videos are about 15 minutes long.  It can start with 30 second to 1 minute poses, 2 minute poses and finally one 5 minute pose.  The 2 minute poses are my favourites - not enough time to get into detail, but just getting important lines and movement sketched in.  FUN!

Day 3-  2 min poses

I am noticing an improvement in my sketching in these first 7 days - the tips and instruction on lovelifedrawing  are helpful.  

 Happy Sketching.

Day 7 - 2 min poses

Day 7 - 5 min pose