A ten and a fifteen

 Conté and charcoal.  Surprising that I got more done in 10 minutes than in 15?  Not really.  Sometimes I get lost in the lines.

10 one minute sketches of Samm

 The title says the bare minimum.  Samm just always gives us more than we expect.  These gestures may not show it, but her effort really gets us warmed up for her longer poses.  Super appreciate the effort and professionalism Samm gives us.

45 minutes of drawing joy

 Nothing more to say other than I had a blast working this one.  Such rich tones and wonderful shapes.  Fun, fun, fun...

The Thinker Reimagined

 Aside from the vaguely familiar pose, I just fell in love with how her body revealed the various shapes and masses that show how her torso bends and folds.  Just wonderful to draw.

All about the arm

 This may have started out being a study of the waist and hip and then I got distracted with her arm.  Just a lot of fun getting it to be more than a couple of tubes with a wrist.  This was a great study.

Kinda cheeky

 The great shapes and lines just spoke to me in this pose.  A short 10 minutes so I didn't get as far as I wanted.  This one was all about observation and deliberate mark making.

Feeling a bit, um, sketchy...

 Gestures, donchaknow.

My favorite of the evening

 Really love the gesture of this pose.  I'm even happy with the rendering.  I guess that means I'm happy with this sketch.

The customary 45 minute pose that lasted 50 minutes

 And I still couldn't get an entire figure done.  Gotta stop getting hung up on details so early on in the process...

Sittin' purty

 Just never enough time to really sink my artistic teeth into some of these drawings.  This one has so much potential and yet I'll probably never get to finish it.  I do, however, like what I've started.

Almost Egon

 The shapes and masses that Dylan presented Thursday evening brought out the Klimt/Schiele side of me.  Not my usual manner but I kinda like it.  A bit abstract.

Gestural beauty

The quick sketches of Dylan
 

Really loved the shadows

 I really wanted to have the figure "emerge" from the shadowy depths of the background. Not there yet.45 minutes.

15 minute head study

 I was really enjoying this drawing.  Would love for this to have been the long pose just to spend more time with her bone structure.  So many wonderful shapes to draw...

Fourteen minutes

 We gave Dylan a whole minute break as her feet were taking a beating in this pose.  I only gave an indication to the aforementioned feet.  More time, obviously, just wasn't going to work.

Two ten minutes sketches

 Just enough time to get a partial study going.

Finally, back to life drawing. The gestures of Dylan

 Yep, little one minute studies.  Gotta get warmed up, donchaknow.

Update.

 Thank you to the gallery at Roots.  They have sold these four pieces in the last month.

 

Silent Harmony

 

 

Eye See You

 

 

Branch Office

 

The Eyes Have It

The Eyes Have It

 Now available at Roots Art Gallery, Billings Midtown.

Last drawing from our most recent session

 45 minutes and barely got started.  I really wanted to play with the shapes moving in and out of the deep shadows.  Fun one to draw.

Again with the cool shadows!

 The finish may not be as interesting as the process was.  Given time, this would have rounded into a beautiful drawing.  

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy

 This would make a wonderful painting with great drapery and maybe some jewelry.  She was holding a styrofoam ball rather than a skull, but we all know what it represented.  Some wonderful shadows at play in this one.

Gentle shadows across the torso

 Simple headless torso sketch.  Just trying to work out the shadows and shapes.

Sorry for the delay...

 Took a trip out of town so I didn't get these shot before last night.  Here are the gesture drawings.

 Samm has really become a fantastic figure model.  She commits totally to giving the artists exactly what they want and has pushed her gestures to another level.  We are lucky to have her.

Twist

 This is my favorite of the session and it was the first pose of the night (sans the gesture poses).  In my  eyes, it all went downhill for me from this point.

Knees, shins and a little blue book

 I wasn't enamored with this pose so I just focused on the knees and the shadows.

Shadows and shapes

 Ran out of (say it with me) time.  This had a chance to be a pretty nice sketch.

45 minutes (or thereabouts)

 This was a lost opportunity.  I was having so much fun with manipulating the shadows that I didn't pay as close of attention to the basics.

Gestures with Patience

Scribble, scribble, scribble...
 

As per usual, the long pose

 

I was thoroughly enjoying the beautiful shadows and how informed the shapes and mass of the figure.  Really a nice pose to work from.

Fifteen minutes again

This one deserved more time.  I would love to have gotten to her head and neck in a more meaningful way.
 

The fifteen minute face...

 ...without eyes.  (Apologies to Billy Idol for twisting his lyric)

The two 10 minute drawings

 Just kinda gettin' warmed up with these.

Gestures of Dylan

 Our last session with Dylan for a while yielded some wonderful poses.  Gestures, anyone?

45

 I was really enjoying this one.  Of course, foreshortening is a favorite of mine.  I love the way the pose draws the eye across the legs and then into the torso in a reverse Z pattern.  I think leaving her head out of the drawing gives the sketch more legitimacy than having the eye stop with her face.  Or I could be wrong.

Fifteen

 So many shadows to work with that I didn't progress as far as I had hoped.  I like the texture that I applied, though.

The other ten minute pose

 Again, I was fascinated with shapes and wasn't concerned about creating a full figure.

First ten minute pose of the session

 I was really getting into the various shapes and didn't care that I didn't get even a wee bit close to a finished sketch.  Lots of smudging and sculpting with vine charcoal.