Kayleigh's Canvas. Life Drawing.: Week 7 Life Drawing Session 6: Working in Layers

For this life drawing lesson I wanted to push myself outside of my comfort zone and so I decided to use acrylic paint. In the previous lesson, I'd used watercolour paint which I'm very used to. The pieces I created surpassed my expectations and I feel like I've improved so much over the module. Obviously, there is always improvement to be made, but I feel I've come a long way from the beginning of the semester.

The first two exercises, (1) and (2), were warm up exercises. I found that they were a good way to get into the session and forced me not to worry and just to draw. I was particularly pleased with the central figure in (1) as I feel I captured the model's position well and used correct proportions. The second exercise was great in the way that it got me into the habit of looking for light and shadow before we did our larger pieces.

For (3) I used a medium sized round brush and two contrasting colours in acrylic: purple and yellow, as well as white for highlighting. I actually misunderstood the exercise at first. I was under the impression we were doing three drawings in thirty minutes, and so I rushed mine a bit - only to find we were doing one drawing in thirty minutes, using ten-minute intervals to split dark, medium and light tones. Because I was rushing, the painting isn't as good as it could be and the proportions are a little off, but in future, I know to ask if I am unsure!

I was really pleased with (4). I used a medium-sized flat brush as I wanted to get the impressions rather than the detail and I felt this would help. Again I used the contrasting colours in acrylic: purple and yellow, with white to highlight. This was more successful than (3) not only because I took my time and understood the exercise, but because I created an environment for the subject to be in. This was upon feedback from the tutor to the class to include it. I feel like the proportions, tone and 3D effect of the image are done well in this piece and i I'm quite proud of it.

I believe (5) is the best piece of life drawing I have done so far. I used a large flat brush and multiple acrylic paint colours: pink, blue, yellow, green, etc. I chose these colours as they contrast and compliment each other.I'm so pleased that all of the things we have learnt throughout the semester come through; tone, perspective, foreshortening etc.

For my last piece (6), I used the large flat brush again, but this time I only used shades of blue. It creates a cold and lonely effect and makes the model look sad. I'm not a fan of this piece simply because I think I have done better in previous pieces in the session, and I made mistakes with the face which is where one's eyes are often drawn to.

I feel like building on week 6 and learning about tone again led to a bit of a breakthrough moment for me in the sense that now I feel I can use acrylics, and I can use the techniques we have learnt so far. I have enjoyed the process of developing my work and style over the weeks immensely.