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Can Art be Exhausting? It can with 1 Minute Sketches…

Life Drawing, speed sketches (graphite)
Life Drawing, speed sketches (graphite)

9.30pm and just back from the most challenging and exhilarating Gypsy Sketch Club yet at the Camelot Lounge! Tonight we had an amazing model, Jamie… a very slight Asian lady who was extremely professional, and very, very quick. Her first 45 minute session was full of poses that were barely 1 minute sketches, and I thought 5 minutes was too short! So, what do you do??

You could get tense and frustrated and then grumpy, which I generally do 🙂 , or just buckle up, take a tight grip on your pencil and go for it (which I did tonight). I never realised drawing could be such hard work work, and at the end of the first set I was exhausted… But! I had also been forced to loosen up, just go for the general shape and line, or miss everything that was happening in front of me.

My sketches from the first session began as barely a few lines for each pose but by the end I was getting recognisable figures. A short break (and half a pizza for sustenance!) and we were then into the longer poses, of which this is one… and I’m very happy with the improvement I can see happening in my figure drawing over the weeks…

We were pushed hard this evening, I was certainly out of my comfort zone for the second week running but it goes to show, once again, just how beneficial that can be!