Developments, developments...
So... lots of stuff going on in a short period of time.
So two weeks ago in Wednesday!Sketching Class, we had a nude sketching lesson, with a male model. It was not fun. Could have been because the male model made me feel a bit embarrassed, or it could have been that we were forced to start with charcoal and then move to pencil; maybe it was because I do better in the mornings than the afternoons. It could have been that the teacher, who's pretty young and a little flaky, didn't prepare us well enough. Thursday!6B nude sketching was much more fun. We had a female model this time, and our teacher gave us much more information and tips on techniques - how to find the two opposing tilts of the shoulders and pelvis (contraposto) and how to break down a person's body into geometrical shapes (head, torso/top half, legs/bottom half) and then fill in the smaller details of the limbs and chest.
Also, we started off with pencil (as I think we should; it takes time to become comfortable drawing a nude person, and young artists like us need the comfort of knowing we can make a mistake and erase it until we become more confident) and did a few quick poses. Since I'm comfortable with pencil, and since I have more experience with nude sketching than the other people in the class, I dove right into it and had a good time :)
The one on the right was my first - still getting used to the idea, and also I ran out of time XD But the second one, on the left, was much better.
Then we did the geometrical shapes - I really wish we could have finished the first pose on the left, but the teacher demonstrated how to break it down and then told the model to do a different pose, so we couldn't finish it. Oh well.
Our model wasn't very pretty, IMO, particularly her face and her hair, but her body was good for sketching. Unfortunately, she had very harsh tan-lines, which were distracting. The whole point of the model being nude is so that we can see the body, the skin, the muscle. Tan lines are like clothes - they're lines that cut across the body and confuse us. But oh well. At least she had a little meat on her, unlike the model we had once in high-school who was all skin and bones. This model wasn't very big, not Rubenesque or anything, but she was a real, average woman with curves and with a bit of sag and pudge and just - real.
I was getting really good feedback from the teacher and feeling very confident :) Then we switched to charcoal and I had to get used to it for a bit.
I never draw faces. Whenever I draw faces, this is what happens:
So yeah. No faces XD By then we only had time for one last pose, and the teacher let me and another girl choose our technique, while everyone else was still getting used to things and she instructed them further. I got free hand, yay! :) So I decided to try the charcoal erasing technique, which turned out pretty well on my very first sketching assignment. It worked very well and I'm super-pleased with this sketch:
I really really love this one ♥ I like how the lines aren't perfect and the picture doesn't include all of her body (no feet and the edge of her thigh/butt and shoulder are cut off) but the technique is really special and helps show light and shadow and texture. I'm so in love with my work XD
Anyway. During the first hour of the class (before the nude model arrived) we went over homework assignments - which, shock of all shockers - I didn't do. Even I'm entitled to slack off once in a while. This isn't university yet. I just didn't connect to the assignment. Bleh. Might try to do it sometime later.
During this first hour I also wore my contact lenses. In fact I wore them for an hour before that too, during my breakfast coffee at the nearvy café - but because these are still the regular contacts, my right eye was all blurry and I could hardly read, never mind draw. So before we started the skeching, I removed the contacts :( Gonna have to wait until I get my specially ordered contacts for my right eye and then try again.
Thursday!Salsa was fun, but painful. We did dips - and the guy is not wholely responsible for holding us, we have to work our leg muscles and our arms to stay up. So my shoulders really hurt XD Salsa Guy and I kept our flirting to a minimum for some reason - but we said we might watch a movie on Friday :) I teased him by wearing a shirt that said 'KISS ME' but I kept getting the feeling he didn't want a romantic relationship. I'm okay with being just friends with him too.
On Friday morning I worked 'in the field' as opposed to at the call-center. It was a nice break from the phones, but it wasn't very interesting. We collected the schoolbooks we'd loaned out at the start of the schoo year - the only problem was, not all the students had been informed they had to bring their books back on this day, and most of them were rehearsing their end-of-year show. The next collection day is Sunday, and turns out, the entire school (it's a junoir-high, so only 3 class levels) is on a field trip or still rehearsing the end-of-year show. The school principal is an idiot ><
After getting home and eating lunch I just about collapsed into bed, and woke up several hours later feeling soooo disoriented. I honestly thought it was Saturday morning already. I woke up thinking "Wait.... is it still Friday? Is it afternoon or evening? Is it saturday morning?... wtf...?" Weird. After getting myself together I went down to help with family dinner. Little baby Omer is already crawling - he's a quick little bastard! We have to keep a constant watch on him or he'll just get away from us! :D
And then... Friday night. I went over to Salsa Guy's place. Just to watch a movie, I thought. We'd toned down the flirting the day before and he'd been a bit reserved. Plus our 'date' playing pool on Sunday had felt very friendly and not like a romantic date. Turns out...? Not just a friendly thing XD He's into me. He put the moves on, cuddling and hand-stroking during the movie, kissing right after it. I think we're pretty compatible. We both laughed our asses off during the movie (No Strings Attached, Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman) even at the really stupid gags. Like full-on giggling and belly laughs and slapping our thighs going "Ooooh, he dissed her bad!" and stuff like that. After the movie we stood on the balcony and just looked at the lights (7th floor, they've got a good view) and talked about music and school and work. We've somewhat similar tastes in music, and it turns out he's a very physical, slightly spiritual person. He does extreme sports on the one hand, and on the other hand he does meditation and relaxation techniques... interesting combination XD
After the talk on the balcony we went back to his room and I sat on the bed... and then he came up and loomed over me, grinning... and he leaned down and kissed me. As y'all know, I am not at all into kissing, but I know it's sort of... the gateway to a physical relationship. There's no getting out of it. Also, it wasn't so awful with this guy, except for when he used his tongue. Bleaghhh ><
So over the next hour I lost my shirt, and he even undid my bra but I asked to keep it on. He respected my request and didn't rush me. He figured out that I was a virgin very quickly and teased me pretty bad about it - but in a playfull way. He also took off his shirt, probably to make me feel less self-conscious about being shirtless myself. I've seen him shirtless in a lot of Facebook pictures but man... seeing him in front of me, and feeling his muscles... god. I am so into muscles. He's short, but he's fucking built. He's also heavy as fuck because of all those muscles XDD He kept crushing me whenever he was lying on top of me. But he got off every time I asked. We kissed a lot and generally everything felt good. He's already discovered a few of my ticklish spots and disclosed to me one of his. I felt comfortable with him. I didn't mind feeling his body all along mine. I'm taking this as a good sign.
Maybe it's because intelectually, I know that this guy is going to be a lot easier to 'be' with. He's not needy at all. He's very confident (overly so, and it irritates me on the one hand but it's also very attractive XD ) and doesn't need to keep a girl close to feel good about himself. He's independant and OH MY GOD, I JUST REALIZED. Ori's biggest problem with me was that I often chose Salsa over him. This will definitely NOT be a problem with Salsa Guy! XD Also, he's in permanent army service (meaning, he's finished his mandatory 3 years' service and has decided to stay in the army for several more years, working in a higher position and for better wages of course :P ) so he's home daily and there won't be the problem I had with Ori - not seeing him for 3 weeks, and then 3 days off where he can't get enough of me.
I think this really might work out with Salsa Guy :) I wonder if, before he realized I was a virgin, he thought we'd have sex last night. Even if I weren't on my period, I wouldn't have slept with him last night. It was only barely a second date, and I think that even if I was more experienced, I still wouldn't have slept with him yesterday. Or.. I don't know, maybe I would have XD He was certainly eager for it. I guess I'm flattered :)
As things stand, we'll see each other tonight at a special salsa party at the club. They have a Saturday night line, every week, but tonight is a special birthday celebration for one of the teachers plus a holiday - everyone's supposed to dress in white and while I do own a very pretty pair of white shorts, I'm not sure about wearing them while I'm on my period XD Guess I'll make a split-second decision before I get dressed tonight.
I just realized, I've never posted pictures of me dancing :) There's a guy who's the club's unofficial photographer and I know he has a few pics of me up on FB. I'll post some next week maybe :)
WHEW. If any of you made it this far then I congratulate you, and thank you for putting up with my babbling. You're all the best :)
So two weeks ago in Wednesday!Sketching Class, we had a nude sketching lesson, with a male model. It was not fun. Could have been because the male model made me feel a bit embarrassed, or it could have been that we were forced to start with charcoal and then move to pencil; maybe it was because I do better in the mornings than the afternoons. It could have been that the teacher, who's pretty young and a little flaky, didn't prepare us well enough. Thursday!6B nude sketching was much more fun. We had a female model this time, and our teacher gave us much more information and tips on techniques - how to find the two opposing tilts of the shoulders and pelvis (contraposto) and how to break down a person's body into geometrical shapes (head, torso/top half, legs/bottom half) and then fill in the smaller details of the limbs and chest.
Also, we started off with pencil (as I think we should; it takes time to become comfortable drawing a nude person, and young artists like us need the comfort of knowing we can make a mistake and erase it until we become more confident) and did a few quick poses. Since I'm comfortable with pencil, and since I have more experience with nude sketching than the other people in the class, I dove right into it and had a good time :)
The one on the right was my first - still getting used to the idea, and also I ran out of time XD But the second one, on the left, was much better.
Then we did the geometrical shapes - I really wish we could have finished the first pose on the left, but the teacher demonstrated how to break it down and then told the model to do a different pose, so we couldn't finish it. Oh well.
Our model wasn't very pretty, IMO, particularly her face and her hair, but her body was good for sketching. Unfortunately, she had very harsh tan-lines, which were distracting. The whole point of the model being nude is so that we can see the body, the skin, the muscle. Tan lines are like clothes - they're lines that cut across the body and confuse us. But oh well. At least she had a little meat on her, unlike the model we had once in high-school who was all skin and bones. This model wasn't very big, not Rubenesque or anything, but she was a real, average woman with curves and with a bit of sag and pudge and just - real.
I was getting really good feedback from the teacher and feeling very confident :) Then we switched to charcoal and I had to get used to it for a bit.
I never draw faces. Whenever I draw faces, this is what happens:
So yeah. No faces XD By then we only had time for one last pose, and the teacher let me and another girl choose our technique, while everyone else was still getting used to things and she instructed them further. I got free hand, yay! :) So I decided to try the charcoal erasing technique, which turned out pretty well on my very first sketching assignment. It worked very well and I'm super-pleased with this sketch:
I really really love this one ♥ I like how the lines aren't perfect and the picture doesn't include all of her body (no feet and the edge of her thigh/butt and shoulder are cut off) but the technique is really special and helps show light and shadow and texture. I'm so in love with my work XD
Anyway. During the first hour of the class (before the nude model arrived) we went over homework assignments - which, shock of all shockers - I didn't do. Even I'm entitled to slack off once in a while. This isn't university yet. I just didn't connect to the assignment. Bleh. Might try to do it sometime later.
During this first hour I also wore my contact lenses. In fact I wore them for an hour before that too, during my breakfast coffee at the nearvy café - but because these are still the regular contacts, my right eye was all blurry and I could hardly read, never mind draw. So before we started the skeching, I removed the contacts :( Gonna have to wait until I get my specially ordered contacts for my right eye and then try again.
Thursday!Salsa was fun, but painful. We did dips - and the guy is not wholely responsible for holding us, we have to work our leg muscles and our arms to stay up. So my shoulders really hurt XD Salsa Guy and I kept our flirting to a minimum for some reason - but we said we might watch a movie on Friday :) I teased him by wearing a shirt that said 'KISS ME' but I kept getting the feeling he didn't want a romantic relationship. I'm okay with being just friends with him too.
On Friday morning I worked 'in the field' as opposed to at the call-center. It was a nice break from the phones, but it wasn't very interesting. We collected the schoolbooks we'd loaned out at the start of the schoo year - the only problem was, not all the students had been informed they had to bring their books back on this day, and most of them were rehearsing their end-of-year show. The next collection day is Sunday, and turns out, the entire school (it's a junoir-high, so only 3 class levels) is on a field trip or still rehearsing the end-of-year show. The school principal is an idiot ><
After getting home and eating lunch I just about collapsed into bed, and woke up several hours later feeling soooo disoriented. I honestly thought it was Saturday morning already. I woke up thinking "Wait.... is it still Friday? Is it afternoon or evening? Is it saturday morning?... wtf...?" Weird. After getting myself together I went down to help with family dinner. Little baby Omer is already crawling - he's a quick little bastard! We have to keep a constant watch on him or he'll just get away from us! :D
And then... Friday night. I went over to Salsa Guy's place. Just to watch a movie, I thought. We'd toned down the flirting the day before and he'd been a bit reserved. Plus our 'date' playing pool on Sunday had felt very friendly and not like a romantic date. Turns out...? Not just a friendly thing XD He's into me. He put the moves on, cuddling and hand-stroking during the movie, kissing right after it. I think we're pretty compatible. We both laughed our asses off during the movie (No Strings Attached, Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman) even at the really stupid gags. Like full-on giggling and belly laughs and slapping our thighs going "Ooooh, he dissed her bad!" and stuff like that. After the movie we stood on the balcony and just looked at the lights (7th floor, they've got a good view) and talked about music and school and work. We've somewhat similar tastes in music, and it turns out he's a very physical, slightly spiritual person. He does extreme sports on the one hand, and on the other hand he does meditation and relaxation techniques... interesting combination XD
After the talk on the balcony we went back to his room and I sat on the bed... and then he came up and loomed over me, grinning... and he leaned down and kissed me. As y'all know, I am not at all into kissing, but I know it's sort of... the gateway to a physical relationship. There's no getting out of it. Also, it wasn't so awful with this guy, except for when he used his tongue. Bleaghhh ><
So over the next hour I lost my shirt, and he even undid my bra but I asked to keep it on. He respected my request and didn't rush me. He figured out that I was a virgin very quickly and teased me pretty bad about it - but in a playfull way. He also took off his shirt, probably to make me feel less self-conscious about being shirtless myself. I've seen him shirtless in a lot of Facebook pictures but man... seeing him in front of me, and feeling his muscles... god. I am so into muscles. He's short, but he's fucking built. He's also heavy as fuck because of all those muscles XDD He kept crushing me whenever he was lying on top of me. But he got off every time I asked. We kissed a lot and generally everything felt good. He's already discovered a few of my ticklish spots and disclosed to me one of his. I felt comfortable with him. I didn't mind feeling his body all along mine. I'm taking this as a good sign.
Maybe it's because intelectually, I know that this guy is going to be a lot easier to 'be' with. He's not needy at all. He's very confident (overly so, and it irritates me on the one hand but it's also very attractive XD ) and doesn't need to keep a girl close to feel good about himself. He's independant and OH MY GOD, I JUST REALIZED. Ori's biggest problem with me was that I often chose Salsa over him. This will definitely NOT be a problem with Salsa Guy! XD Also, he's in permanent army service (meaning, he's finished his mandatory 3 years' service and has decided to stay in the army for several more years, working in a higher position and for better wages of course :P ) so he's home daily and there won't be the problem I had with Ori - not seeing him for 3 weeks, and then 3 days off where he can't get enough of me.
I think this really might work out with Salsa Guy :) I wonder if, before he realized I was a virgin, he thought we'd have sex last night. Even if I weren't on my period, I wouldn't have slept with him last night. It was only barely a second date, and I think that even if I was more experienced, I still wouldn't have slept with him yesterday. Or.. I don't know, maybe I would have XD He was certainly eager for it. I guess I'm flattered :)
As things stand, we'll see each other tonight at a special salsa party at the club. They have a Saturday night line, every week, but tonight is a special birthday celebration for one of the teachers plus a holiday - everyone's supposed to dress in white and while I do own a very pretty pair of white shorts, I'm not sure about wearing them while I'm on my period XD Guess I'll make a split-second decision before I get dressed tonight.
I just realized, I've never posted pictures of me dancing :) There's a guy who's the club's unofficial photographer and I know he has a few pics of me up on FB. I'll post some next week maybe :)
WHEW. If any of you made it this far then I congratulate you, and thank you for putting up with my babbling. You're all the best :)