Life drawings: female model standing with arms raised, standing twisted round. 2-minute poses. © Janet E Davis, 2011.
It was the sixth and final of the weekly life drawing sessions.
I had intended to draw with charcoal or compressed charcoal or water-soluble graphic, and to concentrate more on tone when we had the longer poses. Ironically, the longer poses were the ones that proved more difficult to establish the basic elements of position and proportion. I therefore did not get as far as I had hoped with tone.
The last drawing proved the most difficult of the evening, and the charcoal and paper proved a little unpredictable. The paper did not have quite enough ‘bite’ and the charcoal was patchy when applied in areas rather than in lines. I needed another 15 or 20 minutes to get near to where I wanted with the drawing.
Life drawing: female model lying tightly curled up. 25-minute pose. © Janet E Davis, 2011.
I have not yet looked to see if there is any difference between my drawings in the first session and the last. I embarked on this (non-taught) course feeling very unsure as to whether I might have forgotten everything I knew about drawing people. I had not tried life drawing for possibly a decade or longer. I wanted to get back into drawing, and life drawing is the best way of doing that.
My thoughts about drawing naked people has changed since I first did some as a teenager. I am trying to think about what that difference is and how to describe it. I embarked upon these six sessions with the hope that I would begin to explore a little of how I relate to other human beings at this stage in my life. Generally, I have as little physical contact with other people as I had then, and remain as uncomfortable in my own skin now as I was then. My physical self-confidence is less now than it was then. At present, I think that I have a much greater awareness of the fragility of human life.
Life model with Classical plaster cast, 1979 or 1980. © Janet E Davis.
The teenage me was at least a little embarrassed about drawing naked people. On the other hand, I vaguely remember that I was the one who argued that we should have male as well as female life models; and that most of the tutors seemed to find this amusing, but they did find us a male model. He looked quite old to us. I think that he was retired. He wore a jockstrap. I questioned why female models could be completely naked but the male model wore something. The male tutors said that it was to ensure nobody was embarrassed by inadvertent tumescent episodes (they might have expressed it more bluntly).
Later on, in the life studios at the polytechnic, we had fully naked male models. I think I probably blushed at times. One particular model would suddenly have a look of intense concentration on his face as he tried to control his thoughts, and often someone would suggest that it might be the moment for a tea break. I am not sure whether my reaction now would be much different, other than perhaps being far less likely to blush than my 20-year-old self. Life drawing requires a high level of concentration that results in a level of detachment that would incline me to want to draw the change in shape and movement simply as part of my record of observing a human body.
That is perhaps the difference between when I first started life drawing and now. Then, I simply sought to observe in order to understand the physical structure and to record it accurately. Now, I seek to understand the human condition, the context of myself and the model in our species, time and place through observing and drawing.
Life drawing: side view of male sitting on floor - 20 min pose. © Janet E Davis 2011.
As I was drawing, I felt very conscious of how very fragile and brief life is, of how easily damaged the human body and mind is. I felt a sense of wanting to protect other humans, to wrap them in cottonwool – even though I know that is the worst thing to do. I was aware of the vital spark. I sensed and understood when muscles strained to hold the pose, when joints were a bit stiff.
Thoughts about our attitudes to how people look, especially in the age of ‘photoshopping,’ were also going through my mind. People can be very critical of how others look. It often seems that more opprobium is reserved for overweight people than for thieves or thugs. The range of body types and faces (especially female) regarded as aesthetically acceptable seems to have narrowed in the past 10 years.
As I grow older, I become even more conscious of how unrealistic the two paradigms of female beauty are: 1) very tall, extremely slender teenager with perfect skin, almost boyish figure, and with inherent sense of balance to skip around lightly wearing 8-inch platform sandals; 2) slender woman, never older than 24, with perfect skin, impossibly thick hair, permatan, eyelashes thicker and longer than a giraffe’s, bleached teeth – and very large, spherical and perfectly perky breasts. The rest of us are mocked by comedians on the television and radio, castigated by people in the street or online.
Life drawing: male model, standing. Copyright Janet E Davis 2011.
So as I was drawing and thinking about how complex and wonderful all human bodies are, about how much we do not yet know about the chemistry of life, I was also thinking about why people feel such need to judge negatively the appearance of others. As I was trying to work out how to record accurately the position of a foreshortened arm within a minute, my mind was flitting to questions of realism, and how digital images and photographs are moving more towards Mannerism. I wondered if drawing on paper is a way of retrieving a better sense of realism. The temptation to change pixels can be great.
Years ago, I tried to develop my skills in portrait painting. Unfortunately, I ran out of people willing even to sit for long enough for me to do some sketches and drawings from which to work. I can understand why. I have occasionally sat for a portrait in the past and it can feel uncomfortable to be stared at so intently. Drawing and painting is still an excellent method of capturing something of an individual’s personality. We have become so used to the candid shots of the paparazzi that maybe the appreciation and understanding of portraiture is diminishing. Portraits are a dialogue between at least sitter and artist. Sometimes they are a three-way conversation between artist, sitter and commissioner or patron. There can be more time to communicate and to understand each other during the process of drawing or painting a portrait.
Life drawing 2011 wk4 01 2mins. Copyright Janet E Davis 2011.
During these life drawing sessions, a particular group ‘personality’ developed. More than half the group were young and were doing life drawing for the first time. We settled into a pattern of doing short poses during most of the first hour of the session, and then two longer poses after a tea break. I probably found the process more thought-provoking because the young people were asking questions that I had forgotten I would have liked to ask in the distant past. They made me laugh at times. I tried very hard to restrain my impulse to teach them more about art, especially since I had started the sessions feeling very uncertain as to whether I had lost all drawing skills. I was unsatisfied with my drawings, but felt a tremendous sense of ‘coming home’ through being in a studio. It was also lovely to find that a couple of other people liked my drawings.
Now I really would love to be able to do some life painting, but even if I found any evening classes, two hours per week for four to six weeks is not enough time to do more than preparatory work. There would be so much to do with colour to add to structure, tone, movement. So, I am unlikely to be able to do that – but I have signed up for the next lot of untutored life drawing sessions, starting in May.
Further reading and more images
Links to pages of life drawings
More of my posts about life drawing
Life drawings 2011 [week 1] post
Life drawings 2011 week 4 post
Life drawings 2011 week 5 post
Tags: drawing, life model
