V&A Statues

So, there's a group of guys from conceptart.org who meet up regularly on Fridays at the V&A to draw the statues. Man they're good. Like seriously sharp drawings. And not just the statues, but their sketchbooks are full of great stuff. I'm incredibly jealous. Anyway, I pop by occassionally. While I missed them the other night, it's still a great place to go and draw. The best thing about statues is not just that they don't move, but you can sort of trace the artistic thought process that goes in to making them. It's like a living lecture. You hear all these guys talking about artistic anatomy, rib cage blocks, defining planes and masses and all that stuff, but with these statues, you're seeing all of that through another persons hands and eyes. In the case of the V&A, it's also the hands and eyes of someone that really knows their shit, too.

Anyway, I quite like the way these two came out. I actually went back over them for another 10-20 minutes after I stopped looking at the piece itself to try and strengthen the image independantly and I do think it helped. So often (especially with life drawing) you're working to a time limit and don't take the time to go back over an image and do that.

Anyway, not the most exciting update ever. I really need to branch out again, eh?

Also, apologies for not taking great pictures (gah, that shadow!) of these two or tidying up the colors at all. Just wanted to get them up here.

Charcoal and graphit pencil respectively on good sketchbook paper.