Life Drawing... The Beginning

I can't believe how nervous I was about going to this class! I've been worrying about it for days. The worst part is I don't even know what I was worrying about - I guess its just the fear of doing something new.

For our first class we used charcoal and did a mixture of very short 1 minute poses (middle image), aiming to capture the energy of the figure's pose, and longer 10 and 30 minute poses. It was much more difficult than I remember it being! The curse of not practising - I worked out I last did a figure drawing class about 7 years ago. That is quite the career break.

But I'm back now, and I don't think the drawings are too terrible! I don't particularly love charcoal. Its so dirty and messy and I always look like I've cleaned out a chimney when I'm done. But I'm excited for what this course has in store!

Drawing Cats

Orion, waterproof-pen & coloured pencil 
September 2016

Today I googled 'I don't know what to do with my life', and a blog post came up by Mark Manson. Number 6 on his list is:

GUN TO YOUR HEAD, IF YOU HAD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, WHERE WOULD YOU GO AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

So I thought about it, and the answer is art. If I could I would love to have a studio and draw and paint and be creative all day. Some teaching on the side because I love communication-type jobs. I think I just made a life plan?

I planned to draw my friend a picture of his cat Orion for his 30th birthday, but I decided against it because I figured I was rubbish at drawing and it would end up being a really lame gift. But this morning I realised if I want to art, I need to actually DO art! Sure, I'm not going to be amazing at first. I probably won't be amazing for a long time - I have been out of practice for YEARS. But I'm young, I'm talented, and I'm beginning to realise that if I want to do something, I should go out there and DO IT. So here is my drawing of Orion, and it actually turned out alright in the end!