jennicresswell:

Wonderful end to the New England House open studios weekends as part of Brighton Artists Open Houses:- selling a favourite piece from the ‘tree’ series. I feel justified in wearing my badge…..! Many thanks due to those who helped organise and make it possible and to those who came to support small artists.

Work from the talented attendees of the portrait class held at Sussex Sculpture Studio. The course ran for 3 consecutive Tuesday mornings and was led by Marji with input from Andrew. There was a range of techniques including pencil, watercolour and oils used by the attendees. It was exciting to watch the pieces progress and take shape over the weeks. Thanks to the artists for use of their images: Jean and Robert.

Modelling outcome from Sunday’s JAM session at Brighton DRAW. Awkward twisted pose for onlookers with some lovely foreshortening thrown in for good measure.

Thanks to Mark for the use of his work.

I have my own pet theory that the more uncomfortable the pose for the model to hold, the more pleasing the result for the drawer. This certainly wasn’t the most uncomfortable pose ever - no part of me fell asleep during the 50 minutes - but it certainly produced a fabulous response for this artist.

Thanks to Hester for letting me use her painting.

Some lovely images from model session today at Fabrica. Very enjoyable 20 one minute poses - certainly warmed me up in the big cold hall! Thanks to Carolyn for use of her work.

Happy new year!

Me by Senor J, October 2011.  Nice to be drawn with clothes on….

I think it may have been at this festival that I realised my attitude to what I was doing with modelling had altered.  Here I was happily enjoying a chilled out, not drowning in rain, nothing to do but enjoy myself kinda festival, when Miss K (knowingly, I might add) points out something in the program that has caught her eye:

As part of the Science Field, Einstein’s garden is running daily life drawing / anatomy sessions and is looking for people to volunteer to model.  I’m not sure if I waited one or two heartbeats before I decided I was going to offer my services.  At the same time the quiet part of me, which had been enjoying not having to think about anything for 5 minutes, sighed deeply and tried not to cringe too loudly.

I went along to one of the drawing sessions to see what I had in store.  Basically the presenters talked about various parts of the human body whilst the model showed that part off to its best.  I balked slightly when I saw that body painting (drawing on the muscles & tendons to annotate their presentation) was part of the deal, but it was enthusiastically run and attended by serious drawers with little opportunity for people to accidentally stumble across it with nervous giggling.  It was a lot of fun doing the session and the body painting so impressed me I asked them to paint one arm too.  

Since then (and even while I was doing it), I found myself questioning my desire to do this.  I have to admit to myself that I have reached a point where I can no longer claim my interest in modelling to be merely a passing interest, something I do for cash, a casual arrangement.  This was a decisive choice to do something for the sake of doing it; somewhere in my psyche my curiosity in modelling has gone viral and (cringing quiet person aside) I seem to be loving it.

I painted Snr J’s toenails.  I couldn’t resist, and he didn’t protest.  Next step, size 9 stilettos….

A smattering of drawings of sessions I modelled at Draw.  Thank you to the artists who have allowed their images to be used.