Life Drawing at Liberty's of London

Liberty's of London has been hosting events this month as part of their 'Liberty Lounge' promotion on the fourth floor. A section of the store has been turned into a 'lounge' with sofas, plants, tables; a chilled out place to drink a coffee and read books.

I attended a life drawing class organised by Soho Life Drawing last week and enjoyed an hour and a half sketching a model who used props based on Valentine's theme. The poses ranged from 2-minutes to the longest pose at 25 minutes. I used a graphite pencil for the majority of drawings with the exception of my final sketch where I captured some fun colour and texture using oil pastels.
Also, check out the cute Liberty print paper sleeve on my cup of peppermint tea - I have kept it for collage/craft purposes!

 

Life Drawing at Pearl and Groove #3

I love life drawing! It is great to practice your skills, challenge yourself and unwind in a creative and relaxing environment. I joined Bella Franks, artist and life drawing tutor at the delicious Notting Hill bakery, Pearl and Groove for an evening class. I have been to a number of Bella's classes in 2016 (#1 and #2)

Bella always makes you feel at ease, curates a fab playlist to draw along to and has a gorgeous array of life model contacts. Last night's model (Sangfrid? I think) was amazing and posed with such grace and beauty. She really pushed our drawing skills further with some very unique and interesting poses.

We started with a warm-up of a 5-minute sketch then moved onto more sustained 20-minute drawings. I began the evening in monotone with willow charcoal and moved towards more expressive colours in Promarkers, pencil crayons and chalk pastels towards the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the added bonus of a Pearl and Groove gluten-free Blueberry cake at halftime was very yummy!

5-minute sketch with willow charcoal

10-minute sketch with compressed charcoal

20-minute sketch with willow charcoal with red and yellow chalk pastels

20-minute sketch with Promarker pen, blue, red, yellow chalk pastel and blue pencil crayons

10-minute sketch with blue, red and yellow pencil crayons and blue and yellow chalk pastels

5-minute sketch with blue pencil crayon and blue chalk pastel

Art Macabre at the Tower of London

My good friend Alex invited me along to a rather splendid life drawing event at the Tower of London last night with the company Art Macabre. This is a description of the event from the website:

Blood and Jewels
 Explore the myths and legends surrounding some of the world’s most fabulous jewels in this glittering after-hours event at the Tower of London; such as the brazen attempted theft by Colonel Blood. Sketch contemporary fantastical crowns by designer maker Hysteria Machine and capture Kika von Macabre in all her glory in the Medieval Palace at the Tower of London. Draw a skull-faced catacomb saint bedecked in glistening gold and pearls.

I arrived at the Tower just as dusk was setting and the darkening skies lead to a suitably spooky atmosphere. After drinks in the education centre of the Tower (and the obligatory H&S chat) we collected boards and paper ready for our drawing adventure.

Three rooms were adorned with candles, cushions and atmospheric music to add to the ambience of the space. There was a choice of two live models who had the most amazing costumes and striking face make-up was which stunning visual inspiration.

Here are my sketches from the evening. The poses were fairly fast with the longest sketch 25 minutes long.
I really enjoyed the evening and found I got really into sketching onto black paper using conte pencils in white, gold and silver with black charcoal to create depth. It was a fun exercise in loosening up my drawing style and focussing on 3D form as apposed to line.

5 minute sketch

15 minute sketch

Anybody notice an unintentional yet striking resemblance to a certain King of Pop?

10 minute sketch

25 minute sketch

I would certainly attend another drawing event with Art Macabre at the Tower of London to practise my drawing skills.

Life Drawing at Pearl & Groove

I always loved life drawing at art school in the 1990's but it isn't something I have managed to do much of since working full time. During a completely unrelated Google search for cake in Notting Hill I discovered the wonders of a delicious bakery called Pearl and Groove. Situated at the far end of Portabello Road this divine little bakery sells the most scrumptious cakes that just so happen to be gluten-free with some refined sugar and wheat-free options too.

source

Anyway, back to the life drawing classes. There I was surfing the Pearl and Groove website and clicked onto the events page where I found the perfect event: A life drawing class with a little cake break!
I haven't done a life drawing class since the summer of 2014 during Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School cabaret event and knew I would be a little rusty. In order to not go alone I booked two tickets and invited my artist friend Blaze Cyan along too.

The class was organised by artist Bella Franks who runs life drawing classes in unusual venues all around London. Bella was a fun and vibrant host and the life model was beautiful.
The event ran from 7pm - 9pm with a series of quick 2-3 minute poses to get warmed up, progressing to longer 20-30 minute poses later on.

20 minute study using willow charcoal

Five minute studies with willow charcoal

Cake and prosecco was served during a 20 minute break which was very absolutely lovely (I had water instead of prosecco). I chose a Banana Banoffee cake whereas Blaze selected the Rose and Earl Grey Tea cake.

I am definitely going to return to another life drawing class at Pearl and Groove.
The next events are on the 26th July, 10th August and 24th August. Does anybody want to join me on the next drawing class?

Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School

What a way to spend a Monday evening. If you get a chance to go to a Dr. Sketchy's event I would highly recommend it!

What is it you ask?! Well, the original events started in Brooklyn in 2005 by a USA artist called Molly Crabapple and the evening consists of a cabaret act interspersed with the opportunity to do life drawing. There is a bar for drinks to get your creative juices flowing (if you need that sort of thing) and the host of the evening provides commentary and dishes out the odd prize or two! I went with my friends Mel and Rachel and we all absolutely loved it.

My friend Rachel sketching the Cabaret Rouge act.

The London Dr. Sketchy event was hosted as part of the Wonderground festival on the Southbank.

This is the outside of the Speigeltent where the Dr.Sketchy Anti-Art school was held. The seating area is like a dodgems at the fair with wooden dodgem cars as little seats and tables! Very surreal and fun!

Our cabaret act for the evening were three lovely dancers called Cabaret Rouge who started the evening in daring black and silver outfits and danced to the Moulin Rouge version of Roxette. Very striking moves. They used chairs to dance around and when they came to do their poses (for the life-drawing element) they used the chairs as props to create bold and interesting shapes. There was a 20 minute interval where you got a chance to get a drink and in the second act Cabaret Rouge had changed into some fabulous flapper costumes and danced the Charleston and other 1920's style routines.

I have to admit some of my drawings were slightly suspect - I haven't really done any figure drawing since art college over 20 years ago! A bit like riding a bike though, once you know the basics of figure drawing it's just practise! My drawings for the second act were better for having a bit of a warm-up.
I was slightly embarrassed but pleasantly surprised to win a little prize (blowing bubbles - such a cute gift!) for my 10 minute sketch in blue crayon.

My 'prize-winning' blue sketch. I used negative space you know.....

It's a pretty niche event but if you like figure drawing and cabaret then you would absolutely love Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School!

A selection of my 5, 10 and 20 minute sketches from Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art cabaret event