DEGAS – in the style of …
St. Ives Painting School Saturday Live session. Model is a dancer.
In the first half of the Session our model moved then paused for first one minute then five minutes for us to try to catch the pose.
One minute I found more or less impossible, but managed some scribbles which I was able to tidy a little using the session recording,. They now just look like funny little dolls, but it is a record of some of the positions.
I did slightly better with five minutes – still just using charcoal on sugar paper and working very fast.
Next we had three twenty minute poses. Still not a lot of time to try and capture the style of the great man – So here comes the crunch, mine are adequate sketches, his dancers look like living human beings.
Mine 
His
The pose is not exactly the same, as Kerry’s pose was that of ‘The Little Dancer’ which is a sculpture, but this is the nearest picture I could find.
Degas painting her against a background of other dancers makes her stand out. I wish I had not reproduced the black top that Kerryl was wearing as it cools and dominates the picture. Also her face was in deep shadow. Enough excuses!
An initial drawing with pastel pencils, and a second layer of soft pastel added afterwards from the recording. My dancer still looks very flat and has none of the vitality of the Degas. This is may possibly be related to the fact that he was a brilliant artist and I am an elderly amateur!
I have read somewhere that he worked with his pastel moist, and kept a steaming kettle at hand to provide this moisture. I can’t manage the hot kettle routine, but I am wondering if spraying and working while still damp might give a good result, or I think I have seen in the catalogues a medium for working with pastel wet. I have two more of my drawings from the second two twenty minute poses left, so I will experiment, and add the pictures later if I have any success.