Extended drawing - week 1

The Extended Drawing course at City Lit will occupy my Monday evenings until June. Seventeen in the class makes the room quite crowded when the easels are holding the big boards. And we were working big - taping together two sheets of A2 paper and scaling up a tiny playmobile figure. Here he is in his final pose -

First though, a variety of two-minute poses, in charcoal -

which were rubbed out (with paper towel) and a larger, more careful version added (on the right). The final one was started before the break (which alas is compulsory in this three-hour class) -

An hour later, it seems like not much has changed -

but there's been a lot of looking and adjusting, and considerable use of the eraser.

Do try this at home - set aside two hours; join sheets of cartridge paper (it's strong, erasable) with masking tape (on the back); work vertically if possible (tape the paper to a wall?) and get something tiny ... first, quick charcoal drawings (set the timer for two minutes), then a medium sized one (five minutes), and finally a longer, bigger, more considered one. The rubbings-out are all to the good, and there's no rule saying they can't go off the edge of the paper.