Drawing Figures

This summer I took a class in figure drawing.  I did find it valuable to draw a multitude of images from different poses by models; some good growth as an artist. Here are a few sketches/drawings:

Most of the sketches and drawings were made with charcoal and/or conte crayon.  These are both mediums I haven't used very much before.  I enjoyed the looseness of line and variations in tone that can be made with charcoal.

Here is an ink wash sketch; this was something new, too . . . I haven't "drawn" quickly using a paint brush before.  Usually  when painting I am slower than with drawing.  So this was a good experiment, to try going quickly.  

For the drawing on the right and the two at top, we were given a long time to work on the drawings.  The man sitting on a stool was one of the few drawings made with a clothed model.  Most were without clothes, for purposes of learning how to draw human anatomy, and although my art interests are more for drawing clothed figures, as students we quickly got used to observing and drawing nude people (or maybe I should say I got used to it; many of the others had been doing figure drawing before).  One of the benefits of this class was to become more aware of details in human anatomy; this helped with doing the final for the class-- a large picture with several figures in it, in some kind of narration context. But my favorite thing was being able to/"required" to do nothing but draw for three hours twice a week!