Cover Competion

The cover of Chris France's second book by Sandra Seymour-Dale

You may remember that Marina's drawing group participated in a contest to design the cover of the second book about 'Valbonne and the lives of the idle rich' by Chris France.

14 participants drew Chris in several poses during a sunny Monday morning and then had almost 2 months to work out their sketches in a full colour design. Not everybody had the time and the energy to work it out, but 6 showed their results last Monday and I proudly present them:

Chris France by Wim Teunissen

Chris France by Bevvy

Chris France by Cathie van der Stel

 Chris France by Brenda Moorhouse

 

 Chris France by Fiona Biziou

Chris chose the painting that was created by Sandra Seymour-Dale because it had the qualities that go best with the book: it is funny, sharp and slightly silly. Furthermore it had the dog Banjo in it, something which Chris really appreciated... But he was very impressed with all of them!

He talks about it in his daily blog (if you scroll a bit): www.valbonnenews.me

Moving Models

Live drawing on Monday 20 February

Last Model drawing session we started with a new kind of 'warming up'. We usually start with a couple of very quick poses, where our model stands still for a minute and then assumes another pose.

This time we kept the minute, but our model Melissandre turned a little bit after each minute, where the idea was to superimpose the drawings. There are various versions as result, but everyone participated and felt it was a good exercise! We will definitely repeat it next time - and then our model will not turn but move slightly. Imagine the difficulty for your brain: 'catch the pose' in a minute and keep track of the movement...

Below some of the drawings - they are not made with the intention to create beautiful pictures - but for study purposes! And they still 'move' don't you think?!

Neville Moray

Marijke van Schijndel

Wim Teunissen

Lucia Gualtirie

Sandra Seymour-Dale

Claudie X

Georgie Hole

FYI: the idea for the superimposing comes from an excellent book, recommended to me by Neville. It contains 20-something very interesting drawing exercises. I have ordered it and will from time to time 'steal' some of the ideas - of course not without mentioning the source:

"Drawing Projects: An Exploration of the Language of Drawing"
by Mick Maslen. The paperback version costs £14.74

OK - and then of course we also drew longer poses, below two that I happened to take a picture of:

Betty Schep

Marij van Schijndel

a live model

Wim Teunissen - charcoal and sanguine crayon

Every other Monday morning we get together for a couple of hours to draw a live -nude- model. Last time Marie-Jo sat for us. She is beautiful and great to draw, she understands what we need and what makes a pose interesting. No surprise as she is an artist (sculptor) herself...  Last Monday we started with a warming-up, first 6 poses of ONE minute, then some of 2 minutes, then 5, 10 and the last two of half an hour.  The objective of this class is to practice, sharpen the drawing skills, train the eye - and absolutely NOT to create beautiful results, but - as you can see - that happens anyway!!   Many different styles in this group - but the overall quality is excellent. Here's an impression:

 SL - charcoal. She did this picture in 2 minutes...

Marij van Schijndel "drew the light" with white crayon on black paper

Lucia Gualtieri with pencil.

There was more outstanding work but my pictures (taken with my phone) turned out  awful...