Elizabeth August 27th, 2011
Today was Week 6 of our Introduction to Drawing & Painting class at the Melbourne Studio of Art. I was a tiny bit apprehensive about going today because I had to miss last week’s class and I was worried about whether I would be able to keep up! I knew that everybody did their first life drawing class last week and I was really bummed to have missed out. On the other hand, if I had shared my bubonic plague with the class they might not have been anyone there this week.
Tim was nice enough to let me photograph his drawings from last week so that I could show you. Did you catch the part where my boyfriend left me at home to perish from the plague so that he could spend a few hours staring at a pretty naked lady? Yes? Ok good.
The plan for today was to do more life drawing, but 15 minutes before the class the model cancelled! It was pretty unprofessional to leave it to the last minute like that, but part of me was secretly relieved to be able to get a bit more practice in before being presented with a naked lady and a blank sheet of paper.
Our teacher (Michael Gray, sculptor and painter extraordinaire) quickly set up some still life scenes and jumped on to the next topic – complementary colours. After a quick lesson about the colour wheel we were given a piece of fruit and a backdrop in a complementary colour, and we were off!
Tim painted an orange on a bright blue tablecloth:
… and mine was a red apple on a pale green tablecloth.
31 Photos in 31 Days
I was seated on the opposite side of the apple from the light, so there was a lot of shadow and contrasts in the angle I worked from. A girl who sat on the other side of the apple filled her painting with beautiful gradients of orange and red – it looked like a completely different scene to mine! I wish I’d had more time to work on the details, but overall I’m pretty happy with my little fruit.
I deliberately sit at the other side of the room from Tim so that I’m not tempted to compare my work to his (or talk to him too much). At the end of the class Tim came over to see my apple, and proudly declared that it was “the best capsicum in the class!”.
Rude.
(Also? Possibly a little tiny bit true.)
Mine is the capsicum on the left, Tim’s is the mandarin in the middle.
I am having so much fun in this class, and I am already suffering from premature grief at the thought of finishing in two weeks time. If you live in Melbourne, and if you think you can’t draw an apple (or a capsicum)… well, you might be right. But the lovely people at Melbourne Studio of Art are just the people to teach you how!
Week 3 - Black & white acrylic still life
Week 4 - Black, white & burnt sienna still life
