We were off on Monday for Labor Day but were back in class today with the same female Model we've had the past three Wednesdays. Can they not find anyone else to model? Now I'm wondering if we'll have the same model the entire semester. Surely, not!
We started with quick gesture drawings, like usual, but with a cruel twist. We were told they would be five minute poses but after one minute the model was told to sit down and we were instructed to finish our drawings. What?! We did this about six times in a row and I got faster and faster, which I suspect was her intention. But, oh the stress! I'm not even going to bother posting photos of these quick drawings. They are basically the same as the previous gesture drawings, only worse. The teacher said not to worry about how they look but to just draw. Yeah, right.
After this series, our teacher told the model to take a 30 minute pose and we got started. You'd think I would have learned. But no, apparently I'm dumb as a rock because I was totally shocked when she said after the first five minutes that we had to finish the drawing in the next 25 minutes without the model. I had toiled at this impossible task, putting lines where they obviously didn't belong, for about five more minutes, when the teacher told the model to get back up and take the pose again. This is what I produced in the half hour, up-down-up, pose:
It was really coming along and I was disappointed when we had to stop.
Next, she took a sitting pose, which was to be the last, hour-long pose of the day. The teacher spread a large striped cloth over the stool and told us the purpose of the stripes was to show contrast between the cloth and the model's skin. I pretty much ignored the cloth most of the time until the teacher came by and told me to include it. Grr. This was NOT supposed to be a drapery study class! It's called "Figure Drawing!" I ignored it for another few minutes because I knew I would once again run out of time and there were so many areas on the body I still wanted to work on. Finally, I made myself look at those awful, draped stripes and just kind of roughed them in so I could say I did it. And I liked what I saw! The teacher was right! It created contrast and grounded the model in the composition. We had to choose a drawing from the last two weeks to turn in for a grade and I was torn between today's and the one of Roderick, the young man, from last week. Ultimately, it was the stool with the striped cloth that tipped the scale in the direction of today's drawing. Although the actual drawing was not quite as good, the composition was way better. I hope I get a good grade. Here's the drawing:
See what I mean about the stripes! Like usual, I wished I had time to work on it more. I guess I need to get faster. I'll keep working on that.
I'm beginning to wonder how much instruction we are going to get in this class. She is not giving us much at all. We were given a list of supplies, different kinds of pencils and charcoal, and four different kinds of erasers, with no instruction whatsoever on how to use them. I have no idea which eraser to use for which task. Or when to use which paper. Or which pencil is best for gesture drawings: ebony or charcoal. Shouldn't we be studying the proportion of the human body or something? Or bone structure? I mean, shouldn't she be teaching us? My other drawing classes included instruction and demonstrations and slide shows of others' work. Is this normal for a figure drawing class? I'm hoping she is just trying to get us comfortable with drawing nude models and the instruction is yet to come. (And that we'll have more than two models the whole semester...)
