Drawing at the National Gallery

Another year, another few  Friday evenings drawing from the masters at The National Gallery on a City Lit course.  A  different tutor and a different approach. Last year  we spent  some time going around the gallery  having different aspects of a particular topic (composition, form, tone) pointed out before  spending an hour drawing a painting of our choice. This time , after starting as before looking at the sketches of Frank Auerbach  in the cafe,  we went to gallery 23 and choosing a portrait  by Rembrandt, we did  as Auerbach did, making several studies (10 minute sketches-yes really!) of the same painting, looking at form, tone etc. And it really did make you look, making different mistakes each time but gradually  coming to a greater understanding.  

 

 

In the final 10 minutes, so absorbed nearly didn't have time to collect my stuff from the cloakroom and the loos had already closed,  we put what we'd learnt into practice looking at a different painting

 

So quantity rather than quality -the results are definately not as polished as those I produced last year ( some of which are about to feature in this book thanks to being seen on this blog)  but they have  a liveliness about them I like and  the quality of seeing is perhaps greater?