A Most Special Session

This pastel drawing ‘Model Session – 24-03-26 – 1’ is the first pose of a most special session. My ex-colleague was willing to pose for our life model sketching group. We didn’t see eachother for quite some time now. She used to work in the same facility where I teach art class every day. To my surprise she reflected on our ad ‘models wanted’. Of course I was delighted, knowing her for so long now. She is a wonderful person and equally to have come over as our model.

Natural Born Model

For long I have talked about that special relationship between the artist and his model. ‘Sui generis’ I like to call that and as to her debut as model, it was love at first sight. Some people have that: that special quality that make them stand out. Wholeheartedly I can proclaim she is a natural born model. A great body and she can sit perfectly still! So, this pastel is my first one of her and depicting her features came easy.

The Advantage of Knowing the Paper’s Quality

Using the same paper as in our last session has its advantages. Once you get used to the do’s and don’t’s, it’s easy to capture the model’s features. Take the mid-tone quality of Hahnemühle’s Ingres paper for example. It’s easy to use and creates this wonderful blurry patterns. Applying a combination of white an dark Conté Carré chalks do the trick and I simply leave the mid-tones open. For quite some time now I am able to draw much quicker during a life drawing session. This leaves me much more time for artistic considerations, such as style and level of details.

Some Adjustments Back Home

Such details were the person on the table to the right. Which is one of my students by the way. Back home I saw I threw her features in too frantically, so I repositioned her. However, I was able to maintain a sketchy look. Still necessary though because the model is positioned to the left. Without the image of my fellow sketcher to the right the composition would be off by a mile. Perhaps I could have upscaled the mode. Then again, she would have looked too much boxed in by the paper’s boundaries. Last but not least, anatomy wasn’t too ‘offish’ when I looked at it in my studio. Except for her right leg, so I corrected that one. A bit of tweaking on the hands and rubbing out some high-light. It still bears the marks of a true life drawing session.

Pastel drawing on Hahnemühle Dürer Ingres-Bütten Night Blue paper (48 x 62,5 x 0.1 cm)

Artist: Corné Akkers

Sales info: info@corneakkers.com

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