Life Drawing

I went to my first Life Drawing class this week. I’ve never been very good at drawing; my level is generally in the area of stick figures. If I draw a picture, people often comment, “wow, did Littletree do that?”

So I was pretty sceptical about the possibility of me getting anything out of the class, or not embarrassing myself, but I gave it a go anyway, and the results were amazing.

The first pictures were done on short poses, and I was thinking, ‘this is terrible, what am I doing here.’ As you can see – nothing really to be proud of

But the next ones were getting a bit better

Then we did some longer poses – 5 minute ones, and I could really get into it

 

I got a few tips from the teacher and started working more on shading

 

Then we worked on some longer poses – this one was 15 minutes so I had time to really develop it

 

Finally, we spent 20 minutes on one pose, and I’m so amazed by the result. The teacher put on some trance music, and I started really grooving to it, not worrying so much about drawing a “perfect” picture, but just flowing with the moment. I spent ages shading in time with the music and the end product:

I’m so proud of myself for letting go of my fear that I can’t draw, and plunging in, risking looking stupid, and surrendering to it. And I love this picture! I stuck it up on my wall. Every time I see it I marvel at how I could have possibly created such a thing. It’s been such a transformational experience on so many levels – I can’t wait for the next class!

Though I will miss next week’s class, because tomorrow I’m leaving to drive to Canberra for the Homebirth Rally

Littletree Life Drawing

This week we had Life Drawing class again – classes were off for the past 6 weeks or so because the teacher was having her baby (a beautiful water birth I attended), but we thought we’d try having another class and Littletree agreed to “babysit”.

Which meant that Littletree sat with the baby at the mama’s side, bouncing her and being cute. We managed to have a good class, despite regular breastfeeding. Here’s my fave picture I did:

It didn’t really take Littletree all that long to get bored, and she decided to join the class and do some pictures. I was slightly reluctant, because usually when she draws pictures she get very perfectionist and cries that she needs help if she doesn’t get it “right”.

But this time I was amazed. She did really well and came up with some fantastic pictures.

Honestly; how many schooled children get to do life drawing? I think it’s such a great learning experience.

 

Now the problem is going to be getting to go out for Life Drawing on my own, because Littletree will want to join! I’ll have to find another class I can do on my own. LOL

Left Hand of the Goddess

To update on my latest Life Drawings; I’ve been working last week on drawing only with my left hand.

And I’m not left-handed.

It’s so liberating – somehow, since I have less control of the charcoal the pictures come out much freer, and the effect is great.

You can see more Left-handed drawings here (just trying out the new “album” feature in blogger):

 

View Full Album

And this week I worked on not looking at the page while I was drawing. 

It’s a totally different style than the left-handed thing, but also really great results.

I’m enjoying drawing so much! It’s giving me a completely different way of looking at things as well.

Here’s my final piece for this week – the model sat for 45 minutes for this one; the longest pose I’ve worked on. I love it because the style is so vastly different from my instinctive drawing, which is very timid. This is so bold and confident.

Latest Life Drawing

I just wanted to share my latest escapade in Life Drawing

I think I’m really improving since I started, and I’ve been working on new techniques as well. This week I was really focussing on doing feet – something I thought I could never draw, and I found out that I can!

Next I’ll get to working on hands – even harder, and eventually I might work up to drawing faces.

If nothing else, at least I’m getting some good art to adorn the house!

The moral of this story is: you can achieve anything… if you can let go of the fear of looking stupid. ;)

Bedtime

We’re a co-sleeping family, and it’s been an awesome part of our lives (especially the bit where I didn’t have to get up out of bed several times each night to feed the baby when she was still breastfeeding).

But we started talking lately about the idea of Littletree sleeping in her own room. She has her own room in our new house; a very nice, big one with lots of windows and sunshine, and pink sparkly things and a closet full of clothes and toys… however she doesn’t play or sleep in there.

The room was basically a glorified toy box. I asked Littletree why she didn’t like to play in there or sleep in there, and she said that it’s “spooky” and too far away from us – it is the opposite end of the house from where Purple and I have our office spaces set up.

She also said that she wanted to have a “proper” bed, rather than what I prefer, being a thin futon on the floor.

So while she was out at a friend’s house one day, I went to the charity thrift store in town and bought a second-hand bunk bed! It’s one with a single bed on top and a double at the bottom, which means I can still co-sleep with her if she needs it.

We snuck it home, and set it up in my bedroom (where we all usually sleep), and moved all of Littletree’s toys and furniture in there, her desk, craft stuff, play mat and all.

When she got home, I said there’s a surprise for you in the bedroom…

She was so excited! :) She spent the rest of the evening in there, playing, only to come out every 10 minutes to say “thank you so much for my new room, mama!”

She’s slept in there no problems the last three nights, and since the room opens on to the living room where Purple and I are both working, she’s been hanging out in there and playing a lot too.

Best of all; I’ve been able to sleep all stretched out :D

And unrelatedly, I went to my second life drawing class – all of the pictures I did can be seen on my flickr page, but the best two were these:

An attempt at single-line drawing – this whole picture is just one line, done without taking the charcoal off the page at all – even the shading

My first attempt at using pastels:

I’m really enjoying the drawing class, and discovering a freedom of expression :)

Life Drawing Update

I have been a bit slack with uploading photos of my life drawing adventures, but I created a Flickr album for my art, which you can see HERE

I’ve started working with different mediums, like working on better paper than butchers’ paper for a start

And I tried out some different kind of pastel (working on extreme perspective)

On one 40-minute pose I did a series that I really love; the first one was a nice, “polished” piece, done in 30 minutes entirely with my (non-dominant) left hand.

   

Then I still had some more time left, but I felt the picture was done, so I started experimenting. I did the exact same picture again, but using both hands simultaneously, and without looking at the paper.

That took around two minutes, and I really liked it, so I did the same thing again, only holding a different colour in each hand

Then I decided to do a series of one minute sketches, left-handed, one after the other, all on the same paper. I did five sketches, one minute each, in five colours. I love the effect!

I also started trying out pencils

and watercolours

What I love most of all about this class is that the model is often breastfeeding

Where else can you do breastfeeding life drawing classes!? :D

Life Drawing Exhibition

Time for another Life Drawing update. My teacher had a small exhibition of the class’ best works put up in a local gallery – quite odd to see my works up on the wall.

Mine are the two in the bottom left.

Here’s a few of the other drawings I’ve done recently

 

 

 

All Day Drawing

I’ve been having a really busy week this week, and Littletree has a nasty cold, so I haven’t had much to write.

I did do an all-day life drawing group – a bunch of us spent seven hours together, taking turns to do the modelling; I did some nice stuff, you can see it all HERE

Highlights; a one-minute sketch:

Pencil drawing

pastel shading

Long pose

 

It was a great day!

Loren–Who Walked This Path

Last week one of my friends needed people to be in his new music video, so I went along to help out.

I love this song, Loren used to come to the village life drawing classes  and play his music for us while we were drawing; it was awesome! So it was nice to come out and support him in making his art, and great to hang out with everyone down by the river :)

Check it out:

Who Walked this Path–Loren

Edited to add a link to Loren’s website: http://www.loren.com.au/loren.php

Life Drawing

Here’s a sample of my recent drawings :)

A two-minute pose

A ten-minute pose

A fifteen-minute pose

I’m really enjoying experimenting with different styles and mediums

Beautiful Birthing

I’ve been busy lately with mamas birthing. It’s been a fantastic journey around trusting birth.

One birth I was at, the mama was so graceful and focussed. Every time I had thoughts about what might go wrong, or the technical things I should be doing or checking, I looked up and saw the picture she had on her wall

Trust

It was so perfect. Just reminded me to trust. Because it was all flowing exactly as it needed to; no complications, no difficulties, and the mama’s and baby’s bodies knew what to do, just as they were designed to.

At some point in her birthing process, the mama said “no more photos”, so I put my newly-acquired life drawing skills to use and drew a picture to capture the beauty of the scene – one powerful, graceful mama, deep in her process, focussed inwardly, in the bathtub with the shower running on her back.

Last night I was at another birth – a second baby boy for Earth Mama and Autumn. We’d discussed making a birth plan during pre-natal visits, but I started thinking a birth plan is somewhat pointless. Earth Mama wasn’t going to hospital, and the staff rarely take birth plans seriously anyway.

This is the birth plan Earth Mama came up with in the end – I LOVE it! And we totally stuck to her plan 100% :D

Stay home – stay safe!

NVC Workshop

This week’s home school group was a lot of fun – there was a Non-Violent Communication workshop for all the kids

A huge number of families came, including a big group from a new homeschool group that’s formed about 45 minutes north of us – I’d love to go check it out, but they meet at the same time as my life drawing class.

The kids enjoyed doing the little NVC dialogues; the woman was leading the kids in different situations, teaching them how to say how they feel without blaming and criticising. Then Littletree piped up, “Excuse me, I feel like I’d like to have a turn of the hand puppets”

I thought it was pretty funny that this woman was trying to teach all the kids to communicate in the way that they usually do anyway.

It was nice to catch up with everyone again; I’ve been a bit of a hermit lately.