Drawing class, week 10

To start this day of drawing "hybrids", a collaborative exercise - that game where you draw the head, fold the paper, pass it along; draw the body, fold, pass; then the legs, fold, pass; and finally give "it" a name. Lots of imaginative results -
just one example of the many possibilities -

That was the warm-up and then we all set to, using our collection of parts from the British Museum last week, or perhaps getting "bits" from magazines for collage.

I hadn't been looking forward to this, as I'm happier drawing from something that set in front of me than from imagination. But as the exercise showed, you can simply start somewhere and then add something else, and keep going. Simon encouraged us to do each element separately, using different media, and most people did do that. I stuck with the 6B graphite, adding in some 2B pencil and some black coloured pencil, and doing a lot of rubbing out, and ended up with this birdlike "watch dog" -

- definitely not one for turning into 3D ... or is it ... I wonder what's going on round the back there? Another wagging tail, perhaps?

After lunch I struggled with another hybrid, based on a South Sea Island wooden breastplate and the ornate hands on an 18th century clock -

A useful trick was to use tracing paper laid over the drawing for trying out things to add, and where to put them. Then rub the pencil over the back of the lines, trace the object on the front again, and there it is on your drawing, ready to elaborate.

Looking at it twice-removed, as it were, I can see what needs changing for this to work as a three-dimensional drawing - changes to the shape of the dark part and to the connecting tube/arm. But the "right" shape of the sun eludes me. I'm confused by there being two important considerations - the circle in relation to the "body", and in relation to the viewer. Just goes to show you your assumption can stop you seeing what's there in front of you. Well, what would have been in front of me, if I'd actually got a circular object, held it up in the right orientation, and really looked at it. Something to remember "next time"...

And, across the table from me -

Isn't it great how what people are wearing relates to what they're doing?