So, if you've been following along for awhile, you know that I'm a life drawing model. Mostly retired now, but I still work every few months with TriPal Studios. They have a drop in class every other Tuesday. Last time I was there, I brought the needle felted pieces that I showed in my last blog entry, and the lady of the house was intrigued, but couldn't quite figure out how I did it. So, this week I went to draw instead of modeling. I figured I could draw on the shorter poses, and felt on the long one at the end.
It has been over a decade since I did any regular drawing. I was RUSTY. The two minute gesture poses went ok...
But the 20 minute poses showed me that my eye for proportion is quite off.
I have a tendency to make the legs too short. Need more practice!
But this is the reason that I showed up tonight. I brought not only my paper and charcoal, but my wool and felting needles. This was my first time trying to felt from a live model. I could really have used more time on it, but I can see the start of something really neat here.
I used white and black wool on a grey background. The piece is about 8" x 11". I think I would like to work larger, to get the ability to do finer details. Or, next time I should just felt part of the body, and blow it up to fit the background piece. But, so far so good.
With access to a model on the Tuesdays that I'm not working, I think I may need to drop in to draw more often. I could really use the practice. And I'd like to see where the needle felting might take me. I have skills to learn!
