I was starting to feel comfortable with attending the London Drawing online life drawing sessions; I knew what to expect, short poses and long poses. There is a familiar structure to the sessions; the challenge and anxiety comes from getting a figure on the paper.
Then came the session with Camilo, who inhabited and narrated an invented space. He had clothing and props! He had made the props with cardboard, painted backgrounds, and sewn clouds. He performed poses narrating on a theme of a star astronomer/navigator. It totally flummoxed me, being faced with a ‘story’ and a screen filled with stuff; not just an isolated figure. I was out of the comfort zone again. This is where the tutors Josie Deigton and Anne Noble Partridge were invaluable; they were so reassuring and the words that resonated with me during this session, were something like: it’s okay if you don’t know what you are doing, its fine to feel lost; if the visualised story is too much for you, just focus on starting on the figure; or maybe you are interested in the set, pick an aspect of the set to draw.
Camilo April 2021 © Catherine Cronin
I told myself ‘don’t worry about the narrative’, just focus on the figure. The more I drew and the more I looked, the more I found myself absorbed in the story. These are the 3 drawings I am most happy with from this session, I read them as showing a god-architect, who is engaged in mysterious activities in the process of building an Earth and its weather system. I imagine he is one of many god-architects active in the Universe.
I never would have thought to make images like this, you can really surprise yourself by being open to new experiences.
© Catherine Cronin
