Costume Life drawing class

IT was a dark stormy night across the North. I'd spend the day in town, visiting family & attending a work meeting. dashing through the puddles to Dingwall's lovely warm and welcoming community shop, The Greenhouse. I didn't expect anyone to turn up for this experimental art session. But they did!
First to model was gorgeous Laura, who'd bought a great bag of props and frocks.

these are just my scribbly sketches.

Then The Greenhouse's Dave tried out his fab Elf costume, the wardrobe to Narnia will be coming to the Greenhouse very soon, it sounds fantastic!

Here's my scribble of superhero elf Dave.

and here's Rob's drawing of me in a floppy hat.

It was great fun and a very relaxed and inspiring drawing session. Artists like me would love to sit & sketch people out & about in public, all those interesting features and figures, all those crazy clothes. this was a great chance for us all to indulge in just that. It was also really nice that everyone got a change to sit. It's reminded me that i need to draw more often, how fast one gets rusty!

Thanks to the folks who came along and thanks to the Greenhouse for hosting this.

We'll definitely do this again. get in touch if you'd like to be kept informed of dates, times and places. My e-mail is pottery at balnacra dot com

Costume Life Drawing Class

Today I managed to put pencil to paper and do some sketches. From some photos.

this is a talented artist Ruth Brain, who has some fantastic frilly frilly dresses.

and this is Ossian MacUrchin, who regular blog followers may recognise from the Strome Castle Historical event photos I took.

Why was I sketching folks in great clothes? as a warm up for this:~

Which will be at The brilliant Greehouse in Dingwall on Tuesday 13th December , 6- 9pm

Facebook event here.

Life drawing is a vital discipline for anyone wanting to do figurative art, illustration or comics. One of the problems is getting nude models, another is that not all amateur artists are entirely comfortable with nudes, nor the venues, and lets face it in the North Highlands its way too cold!

Traditional Life Classes are good for understanding the muscles and skeleton fits together up to a point, but illustrators like me need dynamic poses, and action rather than relaxed reclined poses, i need to know how clothes hang, how hats sit. So I'm hoping that this class will appeal to all the closet cosplayers in the north, and be something different to get the budding artists and illustrators out on a winters evening. It should be a lot of fun!