Suffering for my art...

Quite literally!

Finally got started on this week's drawing assignment.  Figure drawing.  Boy oh boy it's a difficult one!

Did the warm up exercise.  So far so good.  The art tutor Phil is wonderful and explains things so clearly.  There are three figures to draw this week.  The first one takes the longest and is the most detailed.  My plan was to get as far as completing figure 1 today then do the other two tomorrow, day off on Sunday, then start the new assignment when it's released on Monday.  Well that was the plan till it took me almost six solid hours to complete figure one and now my left hip is agony!

I did take breaks and try not to sit in the one position when drawing, but when I am concentrating hard (which I was) it's easy for an hour to slip by and now I have  horrible sciatic type pain that's caused me to say bad words more than once this evening!   Thank heavens for co-codamol and gabapentin!

I like to follow along with the tutor, which means I have to work at my desk with sketchpad in front of me and my laptop beside me but tomorrow I will sit in a comfy chair and watch the rest of the assignment then tackle the drawing from my comfy chair too.  It's the only way I'll get it done.

There are many things wrong with my attempt at this figure drawing.  The good thing is I know what they are and if I had the will (I don't :-) I could do it over and fix them and there would be improvement, but the purpose of the assignment is not perfection but to teach drawing techniques and new ways (to me) of planning and setting our proportionally correct figure drawings.  The other two drawings in the assignment will allow me to practice and develop the skills I leant today.  Well that's the plan :-))

David had a rubbish round of golf this afternoon.  In fact he was so fed up about it he didn't watch any of the coverage of the Seniors Open taking place up the road at Gleneagles!  He's planning to go up and watch some of it live tomorrow.  Here's hoping it rubs off and restores his recent good form :-))