Kayleigh's Canvas. Life Drawing.: Outside Work: Life Drawing Session

Today I went to a student-run life drawing session facilitated by the arts and culture society of which I am a member. It was at The Garage Studios and lasted two hours. I brought my A1 sketchpad and my art toolbox - I really enjoyed it.

Because of time constraints, I decided not to use wet mediums. I started with pencil and fine liner for the warm up exercises, (1), as they were only two minutes per drawing. It was a good way to get into drawing and to familiarise myself with the new models' body types.

We moved on to a second warm-up with (2) and I decided to stick with pencil again. In order to add some light and shadow, I used the technique of unfocusing my vision to see the simple tones and shaped of the models, this also got me ready for the longer tasks and made me focus.

Going into the longer exercises, (3), I wanted to use assorted graphite pencils in order to create a tonal drawing. I am quite happy with the models' body in my drawing, but I think I made her head too small. I found it difficult to draw her at the angle she was and in hindsight, I would have used my pencil more to check proportions before I committed to the piece.

Lastly, we did one more 25 min drawing, (4), this is my favourite piece. I decided to use oil pastels to create tone in the way we had been taught in week six and seven. I chose dark green, light green and yellow pastels for the dark, mid and light tones, and left parts white to show the brightest parts. I feel like the proportions were done well here and I have shown the light accurately.

Overall it was a great chance to practice the techniques I had learnt in my weekly seminars. It was a challenge to use different models especially in composition with each other, but I found myself naturally using the methods we used in-session to create good pieces of work.

It was also nice to be in a room with different artists and illustrators and see the types of techniques they used. I saw one girl using just white chalk, and a boy using cubes and straight lines to create an impression of the model rather than sketchy drawings - it was an inspiring atmosphere.