Nina Johansson

The life drawing sessions I often go to started again yesterday, after a holiday hiatus. They take place in a little 1930´s cinema theater near where I live, and even though it´s not perfect to sit in a cinema chair to draw (I usually stand up), and the lighting is less than great, it´s never crowded and the atmosphere is always nice.

This is a ten minute pose that I think turned out ok. I used watersoluble pencil and a waterbrush, which worked really well to get a little bit of shading in a short time.

About 24 x 10 cm, watersoluble pencil and waterbrush on cartridge paper.

We drove 700 kilometers today, through a cold and snow-covered Sweden. I grabbed the opportunity to do some sketching in the car, since I was not the one driving at the moment.

15 x 8 cm, pencil on Fabriano Rosapina paper (sketchbook page).

Found a new toy today in a store, a water soluble pencil. I think I actually had one of those once, but I never really used it. I bought two, a 2B and a 4B, and played around a bit. I like the way the water smoothes out the graphite without rubbing out the lines completely. You can keep working on top of the washed surfaces with more graphite, getting much darker traces.

For those of you living in countries where poinsettia is more like a bush or a tree – in Sweden we buy them in December, in a pot, and every Swede get all Christmassy inside when these turn up in windows everywhere. People don´t usually keep them longer than a few weeks or until the red has disappeared – poinsettias do not fancy our climate, so the red leaves don´t come back.

17 x 18 cm, Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth “GIOCONDA” Aquarelle pencils and watercolours on Fabriano Rosapina paper (sketchbook page).

Another week – another life drawing session. With rather poor results this time. The only thing I was remotely happy with was this – a fast sketch of the model´s face. Or half of it.

16 x 15 cm, pencil on cartridge paper.

I went to an open life drawing session yesterday with a friend. I felt a bit rusty, but it was ok after a few warm-up drawings. I like fast poses, it makes me relax in some strange way when I don´t even have a chance to get too caught up in details. All of these were three to four minute poses, except the one on the far left, which was probably around eight minutes.

Each drawing is about 20-30 cm high, drawn in pencil on copier paper. Collage made in Photoshop.