Life drawing improves your ability to draw and is a valued discipline for any artist. The life room enables you to practise observation drawing skills and expand the possibilities of mark-making. The limited timeframes of poses force you to work swiftly, and by doing so a drawn or painted language can develop.
Here I want to take you through one of my drawings from the life room, with the example drawing being from a two-hour session rendered in hard Conté pastel. I like to just use one sheet of paper for however many poses there are. This process not only adds creativity to a drawing but means reams of paper are not wasted.
Lessons in life drawing
The foundation of good life drawing is observation - look, look and look again. If you can see the three-dimensional subject flat, then that can be translated onto a piece of paper. Once you can do this, techniques that suggest three-dimensional form and structure can then be developed. By squinting and outstretching your arm to measure the life form you see differently, in a way that does
