FINALLY! Female Models!

Three sessions of Life drawing to go!

Allison was the model for my torso bust in Sculpture. In Life Drawing, we’ve been drawing mostly male models. And since variety is golden, Allison offered her services for two class sessions. 

(Foreshortened Allison, graphite)

(Allison, graphite)

MORE Life Drawing

Life Drawing

After a few weeks of drawing nude men, we finally got a female model for our class. 

While the hair is a bit wonky, the foreshortening is pretty successful. 

Life Drawing

Life drawing is a very long, strenuous night class. But the hours pay off. I have loads of pictures afterwards. 

Our model was late, so our instructor, Toby, sat in for us. And what a horrible model he was! He was incapable of sitting still. 

Hmmm….is his butt too big???
Our first try at foreshortening ….

Since our class is attempting longer poses, I’ve been trying to slow down and render the model’s face realistically. This is my best so far.

This was a last and fast drawing we squeezed in at the end of our session. 

Whew!

I see naked people

New year. New semester. New classes. 

All of them being art classes. Either this will be the greatest thing ever, or the worst. It’s not that I don’t enjoy doing art. I don’t enjoy feeling like this. Scared, stressed, and scrambling for time. 

I have many projects, papers, and art pieces to complete. And to top it all off, tomorrow is my sophomore review. I’ll sit in front of a panel who are of epitomes of the American Idol judges, but are really just teachers from different art departments. But I’m sure there will be the Paula Abduls, the Randy Jacksons, and (if I’m really lucky) the Simon Cowells. Oh, wait. There’s a fourth judge right? Kara what’s-her-last-name? Never mind. End of metaphor. 

Obviously, I’m extremely nervous. I talked to one of my friends, a fashion design student, who already had her review. She assured me I’d be fine and that I needed to chill. But I’m not so sensible. 

Here are some nude studies from a life drawing class I’m taking:

One of our models told us that he does this professionally, and in his spare time, he studies poses from paintings and sculptures in art history texts. Makes sense. This pose is very Renaissance-esque:

 

Mini-sketch of our model (I ran out of newsprint):
The end of one class, Toby decided that we could try to do a portrait. While it might be a convincing rendering of a human face, a few changes would have made it actually look like our model:

A note on the nude thing: Not a big deal. As the Calendar Girls say, the difference between a naked person and a nude person is art (If you haven’t seen that movie, watch it).