Life class

[Kevin Noonan]

I have searched for information and apologise if I am repeating a previous topic.

Last Wednesday I attended my first life class in over 12 years. It consisted of three 15-minute sessions and one 45-minute session. In the last 10 minutes I seemed to relax and be able to see what was going on. It took the first two sessions before I realised I was too far away from the model and before I knew it the whole thing was over. I work long hours in my day job and recently joined a local Art Club, which only has life drawing a few times a year. I intend to look out a weekly class to help me get back in the saddle after a long time away from drawing and painting.

Any tips for warmups or general advice to get in the "zone". Would be appreciated.

Kev

[Steven Sweeney]

Kevin,

It is practice that will give you the confidence to step up to the easel and begin working straight away. Just keep showing up and paying attention. At some point it won't even occur to you that what you're trying to do is difficult, because you'll have done it successfully so many times.

In my experience, most of drawing is editing, and until you get some marks on the paper -- your "rough draft" -- there's nothing to edit. I don't know if you're using any kind of plumb lines or other measuring techniques, but it may help you get stuck into the drawing if you can just quickly but accurately mark off, say, the top of the head, bottom of the feet, and a few intermediate points (bottom of the chin, elbow, navel, top of the knee caps). To do that, you might take along a length of thread that you can hold out horizontally at arm's length to get these readings from the model and see where they need to go on your paper. You can let the thread hang vertically (use a washer or bit of kneaded eraser for a weight) and get some quick readings about the relative horizontal placement of various points and areas. ("Is the navel to the left of the back of the neck, or to the right?") Then you're ready, after only a few minutes, to start connecting the dots.

That quick check on where the top of the head and bottom of the feet land on your paper is also useful to avoid the problem you had regarding placement of the easel. If you're working sight-size (there's a discussion of the methodology"here") , placement of the easel is critical. And even if you're not working sight-size, getting the top and bottom limits of the figure marked on your paper straight away will ensure that you don't wind up with a splendid little drawing but with no room for the feet.

Other artists are more comfortable with preliminary, loose strokes defining the basic gesture, which is just another way to quickly get something on the paper. What you put there will be correct or it won't be -- the only two possibilities -- and if it isn't, then you're all ready to decide how to correct it. But you can't get started until you get started.

Cheers

[Jean Kelly]

Kevin,

When I took life drawing (30 years ago), I was told to throw out everything I had ever learned about drawing. I was not there to learn about drawing, I was there to learn how to "see". To get "back in the zone" forget about creating the perfect drawing and let your eyes rest on the model as simply shapes and line and shadow. Try some scribble drawings first. Paper is cheap, use lots! And loosen up, have fun, you are surrounded by life all day every day. Try spending some time every day seeing something new in the mundane, ordinary images you see all the time. A tree is no longer a tree, it becomes a wonderful swirling pattern of lines. Your child becomes electric, a sparkling mass of twinkling lights in constant motion. And draw it all--draw what you see and feel.