Drawing practice is batting practice (or something like it)

I'm working on my stats. My batting average since October is 25%. For every four long-pose drawing sessions, I manage to produce one drawing that I am satisfied with.

I told my excellent boss that the other day.

Like some other truly nice people I know, she said "enjoy your class" when I headed off to an instructor-less drawing session. After all, someone "going to drawing" must be attending a class.

I know it's well intentioned, but calling practice a "class" drives me a wee bit crazy.*  I'm suspicious of the assumption that I am taking up a hobby: learning to draw. I haven't told my well wishers  about the amount of effort I've already put into drawing, so there is no reason that they would think otherwise.

Practice, as in training by repeated exercise, isn't a big theme in art history.  Perhaps people think art skills are innate or learned once and retained forever, not dependent on repetition.  When artists speak of their "practice," they use the term to refer to the work they engage in, like a doctor or lawyer's practice, a profession.

Drawings produced at drawing practice are generally not precious. The drawings I produce are certainly not creative expression. If I wanted to express myself creatively, why would I draw a model posed and lit by someone else? If I have an idea for a picture, I don't leave it up to someone else to give me its subject. If I want to explore colour or materials or form, and I'm leaving the content up to someone else, it's just practice, with the goal of adding more skills to my toolbox.

Why do I keep practice drawings? For some not-so-good reasons: to prove I can do something; to be able to prove it to someone else. Narcissism, self promotion, all those self things. And for one good reason, to figure out how I can do it better. Which is why anyone practices anything.


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*In all honesty, my ego goes postal.  It interprets "enjoy your class" as an attack: taking a drawing class is something middle class, middle aged ladies do because, at this stage in their lives, they have a little extra leisure time. Therefore, because I am female and of a certain age,  I am likely to be only a hobbyist; I am unlikely to be, by objective measure, good.

(Unfortunately, even though I agree with it, hearing  "practice makes perfect" would not make my ego a happier camper.)

From last night. The model held the pose for 3 hrs with only one long break and one stretch.

And another long pose portrait

First long pose in months

Patent derby dress shoe

Long pose

My first and last long pose for the summer. Last night, I caught the last session before September.

Shoe for a very special person

Shoes pencil and paint

Some guy (who modelled for a few hours).

Painted this last week. I'm going to the workshop Elaine Despins is giving on flesh tones tomorrow. I'm expecting some improvement.

This is always the hardest pose to draw.

Why so hard?

• Upside down heads are always difficult. 
• The size relationships (hips, chest, head and distances) are difficult to get right without measuring. 
• The skull-spine-ribcage-hip diagram that's so useful for a standing pose, and which I appreciate because it helps me convey how weight is balanced and born  to the ground, becomes a set of strung-together masses, one in front of the other.

This type of pose must be one of the easiest to hold.  It's associated with beauty, intimacy, and voyeurism, as in watching a sleeping person.  So it should be good, but once a drawing session is enough, thank you. 

I don't like it.  In my meaner moments, I think of it as a vanity pose.  But, on the upside, I have to admit that it takes a lot of discipline to draw it accurately, so once in a while, once a session, it's ok.

Another Thursday portrait

I had a good initial drawing, lost the fullness of the face while I was painting. Getting some help with color in March, I hope. So expect improvement then.

A new month, another portrait

Another portrait, January 16

Long pose.

Portrait, Jan 9, Jan 21

Oil painting from ta drawign

Oil sketch from the drawing.