So today's drive to class didn't end with the usual emergency run to the toilet! Yay! My anxiety has definitely decreased, but will likely never go completely away. I do wish that one day I'll at least gain a sense of competence with my Drawing. Will I ever feel comfortable and confident in my ability?
We had the same female model from a week ago and I'm wondering if we will have the same two models all year. I have lost all nervousness about staring at a totally nude stranger. I suppose studying art history and the time line of nude figures represented in art throughout the years has helped with this.
Today's class began with the usual quick poses and gesture drawings and my usual mess of drawings. Look at the previous posted gesture drawings from the last two classes and you'll know exactly what they look like. They are all the same: a scribbly mess! But I'm learning that maybe these fast, messy drawings are like stretching exercises before the dance. They are just a warm up and necessary for success.
After fifteen minutes of gesture drawings we have one fifteen minute pose. Not near enough time but much better than one minute! I have a difficult time drawing lips and when short on time it's easier to avoid them. I always draw them with too many hard lines and they always seem to look cartoonish. Hopefully, I'll learn how to do them better in this class!

Finally, we have an hour drawing. The teacher recommended that we use our "good" drawing paper instead of newsprint for poses of this length. Getting out the good paper caused an additional layer of anxiety because of the pressure I felt to make a good drawing. One hour still wasn't enough time for me to finish and I wonder if I need to plan my time better and do it faster. Like previous poses, when the model got up for her break and came back, she wasn't in the exact same position and it caused me problems.


When I first started this drawing and was studying her form and lines, I was overcome by the beauty of her body. The beauty of the human form overwhelms me sometimes! My eyes teared up and it took an act of will to stop the impending flow of tears before they ran down my face. One of my fears concerning this class is that my lack of drawing skills will make the sacred body of a real person look grotesque. It's one thing to draw a wine bottle that looks deformed and quite another to botch up a human being's body.