Life drawing replay: Arthur & Lilith (Sweetest of Monsters) (Patreon)

This video is a recording of a live Zoom life drawing session, aired on 11th Oct 2023. The recording is shared here so that you can catch up and draw from the session if you missed it, or continue to work on a drawing if you attended live! As this is a recording of a live session the quality is limited by Zoom and will be a lower resolution than our our tutored sessions which are recorded locally and undergo more rigorous processing before their release. Please feel free to work from the video directly, or to take a screenshot to work from - if you take a screenshot please do be mindful of the photo guidance below. Click the cog in the bottom right of the screen and select 1080 for the highest resolution image - if you're working on a tablet or phone, enable rotation and turn your devise into portrait format for the best view.

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In this video

• 5 x 1 min poses
• 5 x 3 min poses
• 2 x 10 min poses
• 1 x 30 min pose

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About the session & model

The poses in this session were inspired by Rose O'Neil's Sweetest of Monsters - Rose O'Neil was an American illustrator working in the early 20th Century. Best known for her 'Kewpie' characters she also produced a body of personal work depicting imaginary characters of dreamlike mysticism. Here is her own description of her working process:

"When the guests were gone I used to draw at night.  Now that I had plenty of money I did not illustrate as much but let my hand have free play.  I would pull up the big rocking chair under the light and let myself go.  I am ashamed to be seen when I suffer or when I toil.  In the latter case my consciousness has gone away.  I leave my cadaver behind and I am embarrassed like a suicide.  Often I would have no plan before beginning.  The plan seemed hidden in the hand itself.  Then satyr-like heads and half-beastly shapes would appear on the paper and the Idea would loom.  Marvelous nights!  With the sound of passers in the Square growing few -- perhaps a moon crossing the sky beyond my large high windows and the rustling images of ancestral things surging through my head and projecting themselves upon my paper all wrapped in mesh of endless convolutions.  Late in the night I would get out of the "Drunken Sailor" (her rocking chair) and, half drunk myself with visions, lay my drawing or drawings (sometimes there would be several) in the portfolio and stagger off to bed.  Another monster had been born.

I seemed to be entranced by the idea of the rise of man from animal origins and was always drawing low slant-browed beings that pointed the road behind us.  These beings charmed me.  They seemed to have the freshness of leaves, the rugged well-being of the rocks themselves.  I made them with great necks curved like a stallion's.  We called these drawings "the monsters".  Meemie (mother) complained of them.  She had a literal eye.  I made these drawings in an intricate network of lines with a small brush and India ink.  Meemie said she did not like to see the figures "all tied up in a web."  I said, "Why make it with a few lines when you can make it with many?"  The web of lines took time.  And that was the fun of it.  Not to conclude -- to go on deliriously sculpturing the form, prolonging the delight.  While I drew them, I had ecstatic images of the up-surge of life from the "ancestral slime".  This progression seemed to me the epic of epics.  People used to wonder how the hand that made the Kewpies could bring forth those monstrous shapes with their mysterious whisperings of natural forces and eons of developing time."

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About the models

• You can find Lilith & Arthur's joint life poses and clothed poses via the links.
• Both Arthur & Lilith's pronouns are they/them
• You can find Arthur's solo life photoset HERE, portrait photoset HERE & tonal portrait photoset HERE 
• You can follow Arthur's instagram HERE
• You can watch Arthur's portrait replay HERE & life drawing replay HERE
• You can follow Lilith's modelling Instagram HERE
• You can find Lilith's portrait, life & clothed photo-sets via the links.
• You can watch Lilith first & second portrait recordings by following the links & life drawing replay HERE 

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Use the Draw Patreon Navigator to find any of our past posts.

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Guidelines for using the photographs

Please do:

• Save screenshots from this video to your own computers and devices.
• Use the pictures to draw, paint, print and sculpt from, being as realistic or creative as you like
• Share the artwork you’ve made with us and the world - in books, in exhibitions, on social media, or on your fridge
• Tag us in work you make (@drawbrighton / #drawbrighton) – you don’t have to, but we love to see what you’ve made!
• Edit the screenshots as reference for your own drawings - you can change the contrasts, colours and backgrounds to provide more tailored reference for yourself.

Please don't:

• Share these pictures or recordings with anybody else – they are between you and us
• Share the pictures or recordings themselves online – thanks for respecting our models’ privacy
• Edit the pictures or recordings themselves for artwork – we want to see original work you’ve made

Thanks!

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Having trouble viewing the video? You can watch it directly HERE