Our RDS class this week investigated the narrative of space between two models. To prepare we started by looking at paintings and drawings by Edward Hopper, Walter Sickert and Alex Katz. The latter I’d not seen before.

All the artists communicated the sometimes strange relationships of figures within their pictures. Cherry pointed out how the spaces where the figures were located were critical to the narratives between them. Without the room, the space of a bed or the falling light upon a wall, the figures would have been lost and without meaning. Somehow the depicted space amplified the disjuncture between the figures. The Hopper paintings appeared completely ‘new’ after having been looked at this way.

Trying to capture a narrative between the two models was difficult especially as we were drawing quick poses, typically no longer than 20 minutes. Another excellent if hard class.

This piece didn’t go down well in the RDS class. To be honest I didn’t like it either because it failed to do what I was attempting which was not to fall back on to old drawing and painting habits. Orlando described it correctly and dismissively as ‘a water colour’. I knew what he meant. He was striving for us all to investigate our drawing processes more vigorously and in that, here, I entirely failed.

Others in the class seem to be breaking free and I will try to follow them. It is really hard to ‘become untethered’, as Orlando describes, but I’ve a life drawing class at Tottenham Art Classes this evening and will have another go with a different model and setting.