A strange name, right? Anyhow, that is the name of our model tonight. He stepped in for a pretty new model, who unfortunately forgot the appointment, shit happens. Herand is an old Irish surname, bit like my name, which is actually an old Scottish surname, perhaps meaning “the house-ward”. Well, whatever, they are just names, and they don’t make life easier if they are uncommon where you live.

As I said, Herand jumped in and managed to get to us after we had been drawing each other for 40 minutes. I’m quite happy with the results, I’ve got my technique to capture a pose in a few minutes (the poses were all between 2 and 8 minutes). The technique starts with a very quick “envelope” type geometrical shape that also identifies where a few major parts are to be placed (e.g. the head), and the angles of the shoulders for example. I do that in graphite and then I switch to a pretty thick, water-resitant black felt-tip pen and quickly draw some contour lines (this all has to pretty fast, I know that angles are important, clear direction changes and I try to consider places where no contour lines should be placed – but I often get swept away in the moment and make “too many” lines).

Then the real fun starts. The colour, or tone value gets to show up. This is the phase where I can start looking at the model in more detail and check for bumps that I can identify better, listen to a memory here or there (“look, that crease identifies where the 10th rib is”, “oh, is that the iliotibial band I see there?”, “right there must be the ichium – sitting bone”). And on come the hatching lines, to build the form. Cast shadows get clean edges, always trying to convey the form which the shadow was cast upon.

And then the evening ends suddenly, it’s time to go back home, hyped and full of energy. It’s 10pm and the next day is already calling.

Good night!