The class has three other people. Let me identify them since I think they'll come into play in future classes.
Pinterest Lady (PL) - A lady about my age, taking the class to have something to do before she moves out of state
Manga Girl (MG) - A teenager who somehow makes me think she's into manga and showed up without the supplies from the list
Serious Art Guy (SAG) - A guy about my age (I think) who brought his traveling easel complete with extendable legs and a full Hobby Lobby table easel box full of supplies.
The teacher was credible if a little disorganized with his lesson plan. He also took multiple trips to bring in his supplies, delaying the class. People also staggered in after the start time so there's that.
The teacher set up a still life that had a fabric draped box background and four objects. There was strong side lighting to get some shadows and hotspots. He didn't say that part, I just knew it.
He had drawing boards for those of us who didn't and gave us big sheets of cheap newsprint to do this first drawing. Then he said to draw. No instructions to start, no help, just .. draw.
Ok. I started drawing. I guess I knew more than I thought since I was able to get the basic forms on paper in a way that they looked like the ones in the still life. Shading was more difficult due to the single color option (black) and trying to get it right.
Here's my drawing. Snicker all you like but I haven't really drawn anything in a very long time.
I guess you can see the various objects, their relation to each other, and the basic shading of what's what. He gave us tissue to blend the pencil into actual shading. The dark line in the upper right is where I gave charcoal a try and decided against it. To be fair there was a deep shadow there.
If you look closely at the drawing (your choice there) you can see I added the reflections of the three people's drawing boards in the left vase and the reflections of the other objects in the right vase (it was black). This was because I finished the thing in about an hour. Out of a two hour class.
The teacher seemed a bit unsure of what to do for me for the rest of the class time. He gave me a printout of a statue face that had strong lighting and said for me to draw that. Really? The human face is one of the more difficult things to draw and he's giving it to me in the first class?
Ok. It turns out that my reading over all the Etherington Brothers tutorials on Twitter and the linked blog paid off. I was able to at least put the features in the right place and get some of the shading right. The nose even looked like a human nose. No. I'm not posting pictures of that one at all.
I took that as far as possible with plenty of time to spare. Once again he dug into his tacklebox and had me try ochre pastel. I used an extra pitcher that didn't make it into the still life as my subject. I did all right and found how to use the pastel to make directional shading. I also learned that a little pastel goes a long way when you start blending. I'm calling that a moderate win. I'm also not showing it.
The final thing was me picking the lamp to draw. At this point PL was also done with her still life and was drawing random things. She kind of followed me with the pastel pitcher and then the lamp. She didn't get the statue picture to copy. That's how we filled out the class.
At the end MG had a decent enough picture using a mechanical pencil and regular eraser. She was still working on it when we stopped. SAG had an attempt at Serious Art and was moderately successful, in my opinion. PL also had a still life that was reasonably accurate.
The instructor looked at all of our results and took pictures. From what he let drop this was done for him to judge our skill levels and how we worked. I'm hoping that means the next classes will be more instruction and be more in line with the students. But he's got a half-and-half here. Two that seem to move faster than the others. This may or may not be a problem and I can say it is partially my problem because I'm one of the faster ones.
I'm happy with my still life and most of the extra things I did. I learned some things. I found out I knew more than I thought. These are all good things. I also wasn't nervous about drawing the still life, which was kind of surprising to me.
My style at this point seems to be "fast and dirty". I used a harder pencil to draw in the basic lines and shapes then switched to successively softer ones to shade and bulk them in. I didn't bother to erase any hard pencil lines (drawn lightly, of course) as I worked. In a more finished drawing they would have been erased or covered. I have a lot to learn about how to do pencil drawings when I don't have color to use to show various effects.
I don't choke up on the pencils and I use arm motions more than wrist for everything but the detail work. Again I think this is good when working on the bulk of the drawing. I'll find out if I'm right, I hope. But if it works for me then it's right, right?
I learned a very valuable lesson about pastels that I hope I don't forget when we move to those in class. Less is more when blending is involved. I can always add more but taking them off the paper isn't nearly as easy. To be fair I didn't expect to blend it when I was working and used the texture of the paper to help with the drawing. But again, I hope to remember that.
I'm interested to see how the second class goes. That will be a more accurate representation of how the full run of the session will be. Having the two very different speeds of artists worries me a bit but if we're doing one thing per class and have some options it should work out. If the instructor doesn't provide I can make up my own. Like drawing the lamp in the first session since I had time.
The only person I might make friends with is SAG. MG is just too damn young and PL is moving away. Maybe the instructor but probably not. For all that I said making friends wasn't a goal in the class I wouldn't have objected. Now I know what my options are and can take it or leave it.
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