Sherman

Twos, fives, and a two-hour pose.

Tori

Two hours.

Malo

Five plus hours. I haven't painted traditionally in a few months, and so it was inevitable that I would feel rusty tonight. It shows in the drawing. I'm happy however with the color relationships I managed to indicate - it is challenging to depict geisha make-up on a tan complexion, but I think I did a serviceable job at it. I need to get back into the swing of these things, otherwise I won't be adequately prepared for an advanced portrait painting class I'd like to take with the late fall.

Marla

Twos, fives, a fifteen, and twenty-fives. Marla's pretty fun to draw - kind of a mix between Bettie Page and a Frazetta girl. She threw out some tricky poses tonight. Of course, this is the session I decide I want to focus on shape design. Sheesh.

Natalie

Fives and a two-hour pose. My instructor Lucas worked on the head and fixed some of the wonky shapes I had going on. Thanks man.

Sara

Fives, twenty-fives, and a three-hour head drawing. Regarding the last one: I don't think I captured Sara's likeness to my satisfaction, but I racked up some good lessons in rendering form nonetheless. I worked an extra hour at home on the portrait to clarify my shapes and values, using as guidance demos my teachers at Watts Atelier had posted of their own head studies. Even though the model and lighting were different, I could still borrow their solutions to help me bring this drawing to a better finish. So guys, thanks for the help.

Miki

Five minutes. I have more quick sketches from the session, but I'm not terribly happy with them. Why? Well, I was pretty frustrated all morning as I wasn't able to put down the marks I desired to. I kept asking myself, "Wow, where the hell did all my dexterity go?" Everything I put down seemed to go dark gray almost immediately. I thought I was losing it. I began to suspect the coffee I had this morning was to blame. Then I accused the windbreaker I was wearing of mucking things up (maybe it was impeding my arm movements).

I didn't realize until the afternoon class that the reason I was having so much trouble was I had slipped a few sheets of drawing paper underneath my smooth newsprint. Drawing paper's a lot rougher than the stuff we typically use in class, so its teeth eat away at the charcoal more easily, and as a result, your marks go black faster. Newsprint is so thin it can pick up the texture of whatever is lying underneath, so let this be a lesson - be mindful of what you're drawing on!

Nicole

Twos and fives. Exercises in figure construction to help me memorize a mannequin to use for inventing figures out of my head.

Marisa

Three-and-a-half hours.

John Tucker

One to five minutes. I'm taking a Clothed Gesture Quick Sketch class over at LAAFA with Mark McDonnell as a way of short-circuiting the more academic training I've been collecting at the various schools in the vicinity. The style we draw in is more suited to the animation industry, and we take pains to push the gestures as far as possible to help sell a story. It's a really fun class because we don't have to stick with copying what we see; we can use our imagination to add props and even change the locale if necessary. It's a particularly tough course for me as this method of drawing goes against a lot of what's ingrained in me, but I'm learning a ton and having a blast.