The Sketchbook Series – Looking at People by Marion Wilcocks SGFA

Pen and wash figure study 2

“My sketchbooks are filled with diverse drawings, but here I’d like to focus mainly on people observed in passing, as well as subjects in the Life studio, where I use the sketchbook for preliminary studies or rapid poses.

Action pose

My favourite format is square, with paper robust enough to take a bit of watercolour, and with a stitched binding, so that I can expand across two pages when I want to.




I work fast, and I don’t fiddle with life sketches; they stay the way they arrived on the paper. Sketchbooks are fun to look at because they record immediacy.

Coffee bar

Out and about, I like to draw whenever I can. I explore the way figures form interesting compositions as they recede in perspective, also the extraordinary differences between figure types and shapes.

Travelling by train or bus, I will often draw from the reflection in the window in order to avoid detection!

Fat man on the tourist bus

 

I paint and draw regularly with life models, using them as subjects for fully developed work.

The sketchbook is my preliminary tool for moving poses – sometimes less than a minute – and for difficult or dramatic poses that by their nature cannot be held for long periods.

 

I enjoy ‘drawing the drawers’ too, and the interaction between models and artists.”

Life drawing

Drawers of life

Profile of the artist

Marion Wilcocks SGFA places drawing at the heart of her work.  Having originally trained at Cardiff College of Art, she has also studied at the Sir John Cass School of Art, the Prince’s Drawing School and the Slade summer school, all in London.

Over 20 years’ working life in the City has given Marion a continuing connection with Lloyd’s of London, where she exhibits annually with the Lloyd’s Art Group. She also shows work year round at a nearby wine bar. Marion exhibits successfully in local and London galleries, in open exhibitions at the Mall Galleries, regularly with the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery and the Chelsea Art Society. She belongs to local art societies in Surrey and draws regularly with a group near home. Marion gives demonstrations and workshops with local groups, and opens her studio to visitors each year within the Surrey Artists Open Studios scheme. For more about Marion and her art, please visit her web site www.marionwilcocks.com. Learn more about Surrey Artists Open Studios at the following link.  www.surreyopenstudios.co.uk

Cafe Brood, Southwark

 

Tonal study

Rapid poses