NSA Life 17 Feb 2026

I have not been to the Nottingham Society of Artists for a couple of weeks, so it was nice to be able to go in and catch up with everyone there. This week's model was Sandi. I decided to just do charcoal, but I forgot the clips I use to hold the paper to the board, but luckily I had masking tape with me so I used that instead, which also gave a nice border around the edges.

A3 mixed media paper, willow charcoal.

For this one I skecthed directly with a relatively thick stick of willow charcoal, careful to get the perspective right in the head. Sandi was sitting on a tall staool on top of a platform, so she was quite a bit higher than my eye level, even though I was standing.

I established the dark background early on so that I could relate the other values to it.

For the second session (each one was 45 minutes), I wanted to see whether it would be easier to do the initial sketch in pencil, and then put the charcoal on top. Also, I wanted to focus on having lost edges. The lighting on the model was very flat (there is a huge skylight above) so it was quite a job to find shadows and then emphasize them.

Her legs looked chopped off - I shold have had some charcoal along that bottom border so that it was clear there is an edge there!

A3 willow charcoal on mixed media paper.