I discovered today a pleasurable way of tackling the task set by the tutor of the life-drawing class I normally attend. Regular readers will remember, perhaps, that during our time in quarantine we were asked to use the pause button on our TV controls to make rapid sketches of people appearing in films. I did have a go, but it somehow lacked inspiration. Today I realised how I am able to make this a genuinely pleasurable experience.
Like nearly all sporting activities the snooker World Championship has been cancelled. In its place the BBC has had the brilliant idea of broadcasting classic matches from the past. So this afternoon I seated myself in front of the 1982 match between Ray Reardon and Alex Higgins. It has been real fun! I’ve attempted two different types of sketch. The first is the shot of a snooker player in action. I had never realised before what tremendously interesting poses they adopt in order to make shots. There is often a balletic quality about these, and I intend to do more of them tomorrow.
The second type of image I drew was the portrait of a player. These don’t entirely satisfy me as portraits, but I have been struck by the way in which it is possible to capture the intensity of the moment in the faces of the players. I did one picture of Reardon and two of Higgins. These images are rather more studied than the rapid attempts to capture poses, and present quite different challenges. I don’t spend more than about ten minutes on each one.
An interesting aspect of the exercise was my wife’s comment on the quality off the things I had been doing, and the superiority of these over several of my other figures. She was surprised when I told her that the difference is the presence or absence of a live model. I have discovered that even when I use a mannequin as the basis for drawing the result is invariably more stiff and unnatural than a drawing from life. When I did my Presente! series (based on Italian experience in the Great War) the pieces in which I used live models as the basis for the paintings were usually better then those in which I tried to work from the imagination. It is a lesson I will try to take more seriously in future.
Life has been much better today after the dip in my mood yesterday. My back strain is rather easier, but the principal difference is that I have had things to do–drawing, gardening and a walk. Nothing damages my morale better than inaction.