A History of Art part 18

Spent a few hours in the Studio today, most of that time showing old and new prints to an interested visitor. After she left, I put in a little more time on the new block. The next area to deal with is the upper right corner, which will show a classroom studio and a figure class. I consider the extensive access I had to figure models during my early years as an art major a significant factor in my development. In fact, it's pretty much how I learned to draw. I was taught a few basics in my 2D foundations class, but the Intro to Drawing class looked kind of dull, so I put it off and went straight to painting and printmaking. Meanwhile, the department organized open weekly life drawing sessions, and I started going to those. My senior year no faculty could be found to take charge of it, so I was given the task of organizing it- securing funds, reserving the room, scheduling the models, etc. The spring semester that year the department finally added a life drawing class, which I also attended, my first official drawing class. Took advantage of figure classes at my grad schools to further develop my skills in this area, dealing especially with portraiture at SIU. Like I tell my students now, learn to draw the figure, and everything else follows.

So what I did today on the block was start drawing a studio space. Doesn't look particularly like any space I had a class in- more of a tribute to one of my favorite comics of my adult years, Mister X. Then I took advantage of the great job Molly did cleaning the Studio yesterday to lay out on the floor various charcoal drawings from my Carbondale years. Like I said, mostly concentrated on heads then, but I found a few with parts or whole figures. My plan is to show one or more models posing, possibly using some of these as sources. I'll figure it out next time.