Figure Drawing at OCAD

After a poetry meetup group friday night, with an open mic, and a post-poetry pub visit, I dragged myself off to OCAD (Ontario College of Art and Design) the next morning for a drop-in figure drawing session. I carried a large board with a canvas sheet taped to it, my large drawing pad, 2 sets of paints, watercolour and acrylic, brushes, water jars, palette, etc. since I had been unable to determine in Internet searches if OCAD offered a long pose or not.

Unfortunately, it was a typical life drawing session, beginning with half a dozen 1 minute poses, then onto 3 - 5 minute ones, a few 10 minute, and ending with two 20 minute poses. A format I do not enjoy, and I would not have gone if I had known. So many poses of such short duration do not work for me, and I now look for sessions with longer poses.

Because I had a few things to do downtown (like visit my favourite art store, Above Ground Art Supplies), I ended up walking home, trudging 4km loaded like an elephant. All in all, very exhausting.

Still, in the posts to follow, you will see that I am working very hard to turn these pages into viable paintings.

These were all done in charcoal on 18" x 24" 90lb archival paper.

(ps. The paper is bright white - I took the photos late and it was cloudy, not enough light for my iPhone camera.)