St Edmund's

Last Saturday the Lower Sixth Art pupils joined pupils from Archbishops school on a Life Drawing workshop here at St Edmunds. This was run by Mr Filmer as part of the East Kent School’s Together program.

Life Drawing is drawing a nude model in person. This particular Saturday we were lucky enough to have a model come and pose for us in the Old Gym. It was a very interesting experience as I really enjoyed drawing from life as I had never done it before and was curious.

After setting our easels to the correct height and collecting our charcoal sticks, we began drawing. It started with short 20 second poses where we focused only on capturing the general poses through simple lines. We were encouraged to notice the shapes and angles in a simplified way, rather than looking at details.

We then developed these drawings by using curved and fluid lines to create a sense of movement within each pose.

During the session we were challenged to draw using a variety of approaches. One of the most interesting variants for me was when we drew only a silhouette, not drawing any details of the body, but only describing the space around the body.

I also really liked the technique where we used ink and pastels to create the impression of how the light fell onto the body in different shapes and through different poses. Throughout the session Mr Filmer walked around the room and helped us with our drawings. Towards the end we were given full freedom to draw something of our own and combine together different materials experimentally.

It was a very exciting and entertaining class. I really enjoyed drawing from life because when you see a person, you can understand their real shapes. Compared to drawing from a photograph, when you draw from life, you see the shapes more clearly, understand them more deeply, and it becomes easier to transfer the thoughts to paper.

I remember the first time we walked into the room, I felt a little bit of trepidation as I was worried that I would somehow feel uncomfortable or awkward drawing the model, since I don’t usually encounter such situations in my life. I was afraid that I might fail and so on. But thanks to the structure of the morning and all the techniques we learnt, I realised that drawing from life is not as difficult as I had imagined. In fact, after a few minutes, I quickly adjusted and was no longer nervous.

I really enjoyed the event and would love to do it again.

It was great to work alongside pupils from other schools as well, as we all participated in this new experience together. There were some very cheerful and talented artists, and it was great to meet other pupils this way. The whole morning was a fun atmosphere, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to try in future.

Dominika