Life Drawing is an important skill to help you see things differently ... we see & look at the people around us every day so we think we know what they look like. When rendering what we see in 3D into a 2D image we can make all sorts of assumptions about scale & proportion that turn out not to be accurate when given enough time to check. Foreshortening being the most obvious example. Longer poses enable us to question those assumptions (i.e. “is the foot really that big?”) and to make all sorts of creative decisions about how to respond. 

This workshop will also help you to embrace the challenges of drawing from life: the model will inevitably move during the session, simply relaxing into the pose as well as some changes after breaks. It’s an important part of drawing from life to go with it, and an important part of your finished drawing - the difference between drawing from life and drawing from a photograph is adapting to these movements, this living breathing human doing what they do.

This workshop will take place across two sessions of three hours drawing from the model, with a night to rest & maybe sketch in between.

The first session (Saturday afternoon) will be multiple poses from the model (between 30 seconds and 20 minutes in length). The second session (Sunday morning) will be a single 3 hour pose (with breaks for the model, and a 20 minute break half way through for the artists).

Designed to enable us to first loosen up with our mark-making whilst considering Gesture and Proportion, and then to take what we’ve discovered into making a more exacting drawing during the longer pose the next morning. The focus being to really look at the model as a whole - to see where the majority of their weight is connecting them to the floor or chair, how balance & limbs adapt and compensate - and to render what we see.

This is a skill learning workshop - depending on how you choose to use this time with the model, you may or may not end up with a finished drawing, but you will come away with a greater understanding of human form & movement and see what you’re capable of when really looking - an experience that you can take into any art practise in the future.

Caroline Armstrong graduated with a BA(hons) from the Glasgow School of Art in 1993 and has exhibited her work at London Atelier of Representational Art (LARA) 2008 and Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibition - Mall Galleries, London 2009.

She is regularly commissioned to create drawings for commercial and domestic projects from murals to portraits and drawing has always been her passion. More recently she has been moving into painting with inks and watercolour driven by the inspiration of living so close to the dramatic Dartmoor landscape where a dog walk is regularly side-tracked with a sketch book.

Basic materials will be supplied for first day and only minimal required for second day - details provided after booking. Ticket price is for both sessions and includes the model and tutor.

MAXIMUM OF 8 STUDENTS

More information & materials list will be provided once a booking has been placed, or please contact South West Art, Sidmouth on 01395 514717 or email info@southwestartmaterials.co.uk