Archie McDougall : Life Drawing

Life Drawing

One of the most important (if not THE most important) skill that needs to be developed for painting is drawing. I consider the ability to draw as being at the core of my art. I am constantly working on this area and have found, like many artists, that life drawing offers the best opportunity to practice and perfect the techniques. As with any other skill it needs to be exercised on a regular basis to maintain a necessary level of competence. To that end I attend Life Drawing sessions at least three times a month as part of two groups. These groups are untutored and allow you to focus on pure drawing practice
The Northampton Life Drawing Group meets every second Tuesday in the month in Weston Favell and offers a range of models with poses ranging from 2 minutes to 25minutes. The shorter poses can be quite challenging and demand a good grasp of gesture and proportion fundamentals. I find these short poses can best be tackled using charcoal.

The Life drawing group in the Alfred East Gallery in Kettering meets on the third Wednesday of every month and provides models which adopt only three poses during a session: Two 10 minute and one for approx 90 minutes. This allows a different range of techniques to be employed including the use of my favourite oils. Although it takes a bit more setting up time with easel and oils, its worth the effort as drawing with a brush rather than pencil or charcoal stick is closer to my normal painting practice.