The Stillness of Friends

Latest life drawing practice

So my coffee drip is full again which if you read my last post means there’s lots I’m supposed to be doing again. So time for a blog post! 

Since moving to Germany I have found the art/work/life balance harder than I expected. There are galleries and exhibitions locally I try and make but if I’m being totally honest with myself, I haven’t been trying very hard. There’s been some more solo parenting which means I'm not pushing myself very hard to go out of routine or comfort zone, because basically I can’t afford to break. But there is something I have been able to do a bit more of, thanks to the kindness and patience in the community here, and that is practicing my live painting.

I have been painting from photos for years. Painting from a reference is my prime source of inspiration and helps control the painting practice itself, especially easier when you begin to paint. When I first started I was on the look out for good photos, but then became caught up with fear around copyright and intellectual property rights. So my pool of photos became my own, lovely photographer friends or those on common licensing. As I got older I started looking for more specific things in my photos, a look or moment. Nowadays most of my subjects are based on moments captured with a camera then and there, or staged to replay something that happened earlier without a camera. 

But there was one more obvious route in portrait painting I still wasn’t happy with. Life drawing. I wanted to learn to paint people from life.

For those who don’t paint you can probably imagine the difference, for one thing your subject doesn’t move. But also the camera (or the eye) skews the perspective, warps the form and so can vary quite dramatically. Training yourself to see in life and get the accuracy just seems to be a different skill and one I need to develop. I’ve dipped in an out over the past couple of years, attending life drawing sessions when I can or trying to get my children to sit still, but it’s been here in Germany I’ve had the most luck. Friends have come and sit for a few spare hours before work and I’ve had a couple of go’s painting faces from life, and in a few cases have been really happy with what I’ve produced. 

I’ve still got a way to go, but it definitely feels more in the art of the possible for me now. I shall keep it up, leaning on people’s time when they have it and keeping up the practice. After all, who wants to be draining the coffee machine all the time.