The latest gathering of my clothing optional life drawing group resulted in a mixed bag of drawings. A couple here I really love, and some were a bit iffy! Especially, as ever, when it comes to faces!

I'm always trying to get new friends to join my clothing optional life drawing group, and plenty give it a go, so the latest sessions had someone new, and someone's second go. I especially like these stretchy quick drawings at the top:

And very lovely this friend was to draw too... I continue to mostly find faces hard, but while none of the faces below really look much like my friend, I do at least quite like how they've come out!

More clothing optional life drawing gatherings continue! Including a friend of a friend who was an amazing model!

I've drawn people with tattoos before, sometimes I just ignore them (the tattoos that is), sometimes I include them. I quite like my impression of a tattoo in this first drawing. Not so keen on the terrible job I did of her face!

More friends to draw... Well, including the same friend whose face I like to draw. A very sleeping looking collection of images this time.

Trying to make this idea of mine a more regular things, thanks to enthusiastic friends who want to come! I'm really pleased with this first portrait. I've always found faces very hard, but seem to find this one friend especially drawable!

Meanwhile another friend takes pride in more unusual poses...

I also tried a multicoloured drawing this time, inspired by techniques I'd seen others using at previous life drawing groups. I'm not sure I quite pulled it off to the greatest effect here, but certainly worth playing with further I think.

Final clothing optional life drawing of 2016. I really like the quick sketches I did here.

More clothing optional life drawing, with two new drawers/models.

More clothing optional life drawing, with a shier bunch of participants mostly opting into clothing this time!

Lots of yoga people doing yoga-esque poses this time. And we did so much drawing!

Another round of clothing optional life drawing, with more in attendance this time. My favourite is this first ghostly green drawing!

So I've had this idea for a while to combine art and nudism in one mind opening event, and host clothing optional life drawing, where everyone who comes draws and models, and fun is had by all. I finally got more than one person will to give it a go, so we did it, and it was much fun! I only got to do two decent drawings out of it myself this time around.

She's back, and still in blue and red. This time I did one of my favourite drawings to date, a lovely almost abstract detail:

So this model clearly wasn't quite ready to commit to the cause, his shorts stayed firmly on throughout. Likewise I seemed to struggle to decide what colour he needed to be, resulting in a very colourful set of drawings.

My choice to draw in a sort of fuschia colour, and the way I was drawing in this session, turned out this lovely flesh-like effect:

Generally I much prefer drawing women than men; women's bodies just seem so much more interesting, men are so linear! This guy though, I really liked drawing, he struck some really good poses, and was also just a nice person - It was his first time modelling, and he was really keen to get feedback and take on ideas. It was a really enjoyable session thanks to his energy, and I think I got some pretty decent drawings too!

Game changer! Let's try using coloured pencils today I told myself, and I never looked back! I don't know what it is about drawing in colour, but I feel so much freer to be bold with my marks. My quick sketches gain new life too, as I use a different colour for each pose, making them an anatomical rainbow!

My favourite model is back for these, who since I started drawing in colour I always seem to draw in blue with red hair; she does indeed have red hair, and it gives a nice pop to the images.

I'm really pleased with this first one, it's probably my best face drawing up to this point, and the scribbling give it so much texture and makes the shadows feel almost alive!

Not a life drawing session, just drawing my friend, with clothes on!?!

Same model, now with a prop, booo! Can I blame the distraction of the umbrella for the horrendous faces on these ones??

Thankfully the umbrella was only visiting for part of the session.

And there I go, drawing the other drawers again!

This is the most regular model at the uni society, and she's a real pleasure to draw; always comes up with interesting poses, and the way her body behaves, and folds is so interesting and beautiful! Didn't really do her justice in these first drawings, but did better later!

It had been a few years since I last did any life drawing, when I found this year that the art society at my old uni did a weekly session. Strangely, some years after graduating, this is one of several uni societies I have got quite involved with this year! As you can see, I was a bit rusty getting back to drawing again!

After going to life drawing at the gallery now and then for a while, it got cancelled, because the gallery was getting renovated. I didn't do any drawing for a while, until I discovered a local artist held occasional sessions in his studio space, so I went along to that. I only went once though, I think it clashed with my working arrangements at the time.

I'm not a big fan of props; I don't mind a neutral block of something for a model to position themselves on or against, but when that becomes something they are more activity interacting with, or something more overtly designed, than the prop itself becomes a bit too dominant in the composition for my liking. Case in point, the time the model was asked to sit in a deck-chair. Yuck. I do quite like drawing what's going on around a model though (mainly only if I get bored with a particular pose), like this time I drew the other drawers: