So I arrived the first day of class (after running to the bathroom) to find this written on the blackboard:
KINESTHESIA
As the teacher reads and explains this to us, the model, wearing a robe, walks in, sits on a stool by a platform in the middle of the room, and intensely studies her fingernails. Somehow the fact that she seems nervous lessens my own anxiety. The teacher explains that we will be drawing super fast, each pose lasting five minutes or less and it will look like scribbling, but that's okay.KINESTHESIA is a term that refers to our ability to perceive and empathize with a body's position, presence, and movement. When doing a quickly executed gesture Drawing, the artist has no time for lengthy analysis or for dwelling on details. Responding intuitively and through the kinesthetic act of drawing, the artist internalizes the pose and transcribes its movement and presence into lines. These lines not only follow along with the body's movement but capture and hold that movement in time.
The model takes off her robe and steps onto the platform. We are told to draw. Fast. Immediately my anxiety and awkwardness about her nudity vanish as I put one hundred percent of myself and my focus into drawing. There are absolutely no sexual undertones, as I feared. Focused solely on my newsprint and hunk of charcoal, I no longer even think about her nudity or its implications. I simply draw.
This is my very first drawing in my very first figure drawing class! Yes, I know it's not great! But, heck, it's not horrible either!
We draw one quick gesture drawing after another:
What the heck did I do to her neck?!
Our next set of drawings are to be done without looking at the paper! At all! Ever! We are only to look at the model and follow her contours with our eyes while moving our charcoal on the paper. Each pose will last only one minute. And each piece of paper will have three drawings layered on top of each other. Seriously?! I know this is NOT going to look good. And it doesn't!
Still, not too bad, considering I didn't look at what I was doing!
Next, we had a longer pose, and happily, we were allowed to look at the paper. Still, she wanted it to begin with a very quick gesture drawing.
And finally, our last drawing was to be an hour long pose. We were to begin with a gesture drawing and then add detail. I don't think I ever quite understood how to add detail to a scribbly gesture drawing, but I tried. At one point the model needed to get up and take a break. Although, the teacher used masking tape to mark where the model's hands, feet, and bottom were, I don't think she ever quite got back to exactly the same pose. Her shoulders were off kilter and I got confused.
The teacher collected this drawing as a record of our first attempt at figure drawing. She will give it back to us at the end of the semester with our final drawing so we can see how much progress we've made.
All in all, I felt pretty good about my first class. All my fear and anxiety vanished the moment I started drawing and I remembered why I was doing it. Because I feel fully alive and connected to life when I create art. But forcing myself to sit at that drawing stool for my first figure drawing class was one of the singular, most courageous acts I've ever accomplished.
