figure drawing

Now, don't get all giggly. This is serious stuff. Last night I drew a nude model for the first time in my life. 20 years ago, in this very same classroom, we were supposed to have a nude model, but for some reason or another she was always in a leotard. That's probably for the better. I was young and self conscious and probably would have fallen out in nervous laughter. Now? I'm too old for that silliness. And besides, after about five minutes you don't even notice it anymore as you are so intent on your drawing. The model just becomes another still life.
First we did several warm up exercises where the model would pose for about 30 seconds and we would quickly do some gesture drawing, which is just a few lines to get the position of her body, then some squiggle drawings (not sure if that's the technical term) where you are drawing her mass with a squiggle that looks like a slinky. Then, we had about a minute or two to do some blind contour drawing. I just love (not really) this last exercise.  It's just as it sounds. You are standing off to the side of the easel, and without looking at the drawing paper your eyes slowly follow the contour of the model as your drawing hand moves in unison on the paper. You finish with some rather picassoesque shapes with that one.

Finally, we did about a 5 or 10 minute sketch as seen in the first picture above and then onto an hour [30 minutes, then a break for the model, and then another 30 minutes] sketch seen in the second picture.

If you hadn't already noticed, I'm a bit leery of drawing hands and feet. I never liked it before and I still don't like it now, but don't worry, I'll be working on that in the future. I'd hate for her to have mitten hands and feet forever.

Oh, and I'm pretty certain our model's identity is safely hidden by my drawing skills. Now, maybe when I get to drawing III that will become a concern.