Looking at life drawing through history; Edgar Degas

As well as using Jenny Saville for life drawing inspiration, I have also looked at the historical artist Edgar Degas. I have used him when looking at drawing movement and using a subtle colour pallet. Degas was a French artist famous for his paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings. He is especially identified with the subject of dance. He is particularly masterly in depicitating movement as can be seen in his paintings of dancers. I am using this artist to focus on how different compositions can portray different movements and I hope to use this in my own life drawings. I have created an A1 research page in the style of him to analyse his works further:

I have chosen pictures of his works which each show a different composition. As you can see I have chosen to focus on the dancers which Degas has painted. These are beautiful pieces which show natural and unusual positions and movements. I have been attracted to the works of Degas for two main reasons: the first for the compositions of the dancers and the second because of the pastel colour pallet that Degas chooses to use. Degas tends to paint in oil paint, however when drawing my own figures I have used soft drawing pastels and charcoal pencil. This life drawing was drawn on a recent visit to the jam factory in Oxford. I have chosen to draw more complicated positions and this one I found particularly tricky. The figure is foreshortened meaning the vanishing point is at an angle and the legs appear larger and the head smaller due to the angle which it has been drawn at. 

Using Degas as an inspiration I have drawn this more complicated composition. Unlike my other life drawings which I have drawn in the style of Jenny Saville, I have added a stroke of colour to these drawings. I have chosen a pastel pallet like Degas and have used soft browns, yellows, blues and greens to create a subtle and dim light. I have not coloured the whole model in as this was only a quick sketch and we were not given long to draw this pose. I have added in tone and shading by using hatched lines. You may notice that my lines are also relatively heavy. Degas has also done this for a few of his own sketches of ballet dancers. 

This A1 page is double sided, there are other drawings on the reverse side which I have done with inspiration from Degas: 

I have added annotation about my drawings and the artist, there are further drawings which I have done including another life drawing of the same model. This time the model is in a sitting position. This position was difficult as the left leg was very hard to put into place. I have added a small amount of colour to this picture and a large amount of negative space.

There are also small studies of hands on this page drawn in graphite pencil as these are areas of the body that I have needed to practice. 

These show movement of the hand in different positions. I have found it important to practice every aspect of the human form when attending a life drawing class. Using Degas and Saville as inspirations I will continue to attend life drawing classes to practice drawing the human form.