So I'm sitting there, early like usual because I fear arriving late and being locked out, and the male model walks in and sits down. And I think, "Why, oh, why am I doing this?!" And, "Why, oh, why did I ever think I could draw naked people!?" Any small amount of confidence I had gained in the previous class vanishes like a wisp of vapor. As he takes off his robe, I realize that while I have no problem staring at, intensely studying, and drawing a naked body, I have to avert my eyes at the moment of disrobing. It seems such an invasion of privacy, a crossing of a boundary, to watch someone I've never even met disrobe.
     We are told to use the side of a small piece of charcoal to make what are called "mass gesture drawings." We are to focus on the mass and shape of the body, not the lines. And they are to be fast. Very fast. In fact, this task proved to be extremely difficult to me. I struggled with letting go of my vision of the contour lines. And no sooner had I taken the pose into my brain and put the charcoal on the paper, he had shifted to a new position. To add to the mess I was making on my paper, we were told to put 2-3 poses on each sheet of paper and layer them if necessary. Ugh! At one point, I was a hair's width away from collecting my supplies, giving up and leaving. I was extremely frustrated and discouraged. My discouragement only increased when we were told to turn our drawing around and take a tour of the room to look at the drawings of everyone else. Apparently, I was struggling more than most with this task! Here are my mass gesture drawings. I never got to the point where I could just ignore the contour lines and draw only the mass. I combined them all into one giant collage. Feel free to laugh!