Euan Uglow and the Figure: A Spatial Relationship

This week at university is Innovative Learning Week- basically a series of events, talks and workshops held across the University of Edinburgh campus which should inspire us to take charge of our education. The idea being that we attend as many as possible, both that we find interesting and that are appropriate to our course.

Whilst I would love to spend my week gallivanting all over the place having super innovative fun, I have so much work to get on with in the studio. So I'm having to try and balance my time between the good stuff- workshops and talks- and the necessary stuff- all the cold working in all the world.

Anyways, today I started bright and early with some flat bed work. I have now finished my test pieces and the first few elements of my final piece (I know, very mysterious- there will be hopefully more exciting news about that soon) to a 600 grit so they are just waiting for a good polishing. Then I had my afternoon of fun (woohoo!). 

The Wave.

Diagonal.

So I attended my first innovative event, a life drawing workshop inspired by the work of Euan Uglow- ran by a practice led Phd candidate in printmaking (who also attends the ECA)- Gregor McAlpine. One of my favourite things about the work of Uglow is that he uses small crosses to mark the positioning of his figure on the page and you can see these in his finished works- just  showing that you shouldn't be afraid to make marks and a bit of a mess of the surrounding paper! We started by getting a bit of a feel for how Uglow placed his models on his page and his use of selective furniture and decor. Then it was onto the drawing!

10 minutes.

10 minutes.

30 minutes.

10 minutes.

I really enjoyed this session as Gregor gave excellent instruction and was very constructive with his comments- he also reminded me a bit of Stephen Mangan! Our model, Alastair was also really great as he held some uncomfortable looking yet very interesting positions for us which helped to keep us on our toes- there's nothing I hate more then life drawing models who stand around for every pose like their waiting for a bus!

Overall my first afternoon of innovation was very fun and I am very much looking forward to my next activity- a sketchbooking workshop tomorrow! Wish me luck!