Visual Design Week 2 - An archway, rain, and sitting on particularly uncomfortable cobbled pavement

So week two ended up feeling even better than my first week. My life drawing class produced works I was more keen on, and the opportunity to draw an archway instead of the canal seemed to allow me to sketch pieces which seemed a little more successful (emphasis on 'a little').

There's not really much to say regarding my Monday life drawing class apart from I enjoyed it as I always do, and I can already feel myself beginning to improve ever so slightly, even if it's barely noticeable.

These are my warm up sketches for the session. Some are done using my left hand, others with continuous line, and although not overly successful I've begun to definitely see how they help further into the session by getting me prepared to draw. It's lovely to come into a session and know that whatever I draw for the first 20 minutes or so doesn't have to be perfect.

The top right sketch is my favourite from the session because it's so different from what I'm used to doing, due to its straight line approach rather than the curvaceous lines my old art teacher cursed me for. I like the way the hips are so stark and just the overall pose in general, and so I can say I enjoyed drawing in this new style.

These two were the first sketches of the day in which I was allowed a prolonged period of time to work on them. The one to the left I don't feel is very successful due to my problem with weighting again, as it was supposed to have the figure leaning forward and it quite clearly doesn't show that. However, it again just highlights what I need to aim to improve on in the future.

This is my last study from the session, which was a 15-20 minute study, and one of the pieces I am most proud of to date. I liked the pose and the inclusion of material beneath her, and so enjoyed sketching it, however I realise the head isn't in proportion to the body sadly which makes it all look rather askew. I still like the study though as it feels like it has more form than my previous work. It's nice to feel like I'm improving, even if just slightly.

And for the second part of my day of visual design I was taken to a nearby archway to continue practicing 1-point perspective Sadly there were bright orange barricades in front of the arch due to a nearby spire threatening to fall down and, even though these barricades made it a little harder to draw, I was more sad to have a pretty little part of Leicester not looking so safe. All this said, the actual drawing seemed to go relatively well, even though I was completely stuck to begin with as I wasn't sure how to begin. Once I had the hang of things it all went relatively smoothly, however the ground I had to sit on was not smooth one bit, and the cobbled pavement was extremely uncomfortable to sit on. It's all in the name of art though, right?

The piece above is my final drawing for the archway project. Overall I'm relatively happy with it, I mean it couldn't have gotten much worse than my canal piece which didn't even fit the brief could it? But anyway, I feel like this piece probably needed some darker rendering in areas, but maybe that's due to my lack of confidence and so I just make a light tone and hope it looks right. I spent a long time on the roof on the left attempting to get it correct and I still don't think it's in the right perspective to fit the rest of the piece, but I can work on correcting this sort of mistake in the future. I'm also quite aware that the cobbled path and stone walls aren't as accurate as they could be but I'm not particularly used to drawing such things and so it was all a bit of an experiment here. All in all, I don't think the piece is horrendous and so it must be sort of okay, but still could do with some improvement.