Author: meldrum

My name is David Meldrum. I am an Artist who loves watercolour.

Action Bear!

Post author By meldrum
Post date 2014/03/12
2 Comments on Action Bear!

Lars, who has the nick name, Action Bear posed last night at ABF. I don’t normally attend the life drawing there but my Tuesday figure drawing place of choice (Konstnärshuset) was cancelled due to illness.

The lighting is extreme at ABF, rows and rows of fluorescent tube lighting in a large white room. Hard to see the human form in such harsh conditions.

Should I go to life drawing when I am tired? I was really exhausted, I don’t let it stop me but I wonder if I should give the drawing a rest sometimes. I found it hard to focus. Below are a few drawing from the evening. The last sketch is my homage to Francis Bacon, I just felt like playing around, I think I was frustrated by my lack of sleep.

David Meldrum figure drawing figure painting My Life Drawing Nude Nudes Sketch

Figure painting once again

Post author By meldrum
Post date 2014/03/10
2 Comments on Figure painting once again

I really enjoyed my return to watercolouring at life drawing. It turned out to be a rather special day, the intended model never turned up and we were all packing our bags to go home when this beautiful Russian girl volunteered to pose. It turns out that she was an expert at posing, really beautiful poses. She must have done art-modelling before. ( The model who did not turn up was the uninspiring one I had last week, so you can guess how happy I was about our bit of luck. )

Five minute watercolour nude

Two minute nude

5 minute nude

David Meldrum figure painting Nude Watercolour

Skin-tones

Post author By meldrum
Post date 2014/03/05
2 Comments on Skin-tones

I painted this nude from an image I found on the internet. I think it’s a good effort, but of course there are things like skin-tones and a hand that I’m not totally happy with. The point of this watercolour though was for me to practice and learn and I certainly did discovered many positives and negatives while doing it. The battle for mastery goes on …

Watercolour female nude by David Meldrum

90 minute nude, 20140305

Alvaro Castagnet Herman Pekel Joseph Zbukvic Video Watercolour Watercolouring

The Three Amigos

This is a must see video if you enjoy the work of any of these watercolouring greats, Joseph Zbukvic, Herman Pekel and Alvaro Castagnet. I owe at lot of what I’ve learned to these artists and their wonderful DVDs.

David Meldrum figure drawing My Life Drawing Nude Nudes

Looking for inspiration …

It isn’t easy to do life drawing when one isn’t inspired by the model. At least I wasn’t at first, but then after I had spent some time studying the model’s overweight and untrained frame I noticed he had an interesting face, so I focused on that. I sound like a bitch, I’ll probably burn in hell!

15 minute sketch

10 minute sketch

David Meldrum Sketch

Shading practice

Drawn from a reference on my computer screen. I practice my tonal values and shading a lot at the moment. It’s something I have done very little of in the past. It really is important to get a good understanding of tonal value in art.

Shading practice

Alberto Giacometti artists David Meldrum Lunch Sketch Sketch

Lunch time portrait

I seem to want to draw and paint artists that I admire. This week’s offering is Alberto Giacometti. I should have made his nose a little longer and a little bigger but otherwise I am happy with the result. Normally I tend to draw very quickly so this was an exercise in patience for my part. It took 90 minutes roughly to complete.

Alberto Giacometti pencil sketch on Fabriano A4, 21 x 29,7 cm

David Meldrum figure drawing My Life Drawing Nude Nudes

Tuesday’s life drawing

Location: Konstnärshuset, Stockholm, 20140225

This weeks model enjoyed testing our abilities to the limits. He formed all sorts of strange angles and shapes with his body. I enjoyed it immensely, although I did feel quite tired after the two hour session was over.

Five minute pose

Two minute pose

David Meldrum figure drawing My Life Drawing Nude Nudes Sketch

Suddenly there was magic

Location: Konstnärshuset, Stockholm, 20140218

Well, normally I am very self-critical but this time I have to admit that I’m totally happy with my life drawings. Instead of shading with a 6B lead, I used pastels. A friend uses charcoal and I was envious of the amount of shading he was able to achieve for each pose. With a 6B one has to shade carefully otherwise it looks rough and unattractive to the eye. This takes time and time is short at the life drawing sessions. So using pastels is perfect, they are quick, colourful and create smooth fills. I do not like charcoal as it creates intense contrasts. This results in very dramatic drawings which is something I do not want achieve. I’m searching for a more sensual, softer approach.

Five minute nude

Two minute nude

Five minute nude