An Old Tradition

A few things have worked together to get me to do something I haven't done in years- some life drawing.  I have done a lot of it over the years.  I managed to avoid ever taking a basic drawing class in college, but was able to develop my drawing skills by working from models instead- in weekly open sessions, in painting classes, and in my last semester as an undergrad, in an actual life drawing class.  I started my graduate art career with a summer of life drawing, and only after that applying to be a grad student in art.  I began my second masters degree in a more traditional way, but continued to go to figure drawing classes almost weekly, whether officially as a student in those classes, or unofficially just being invited to sit in whenever I wanted.  As far back as I can remember I wanted to be able to draw people, which could come from my love of comic books or my admiration for great paintings, and I worked hard to do so.  I always tell my students that being able to draw from life trains them to be able to draw anything else, and many arts organizations make figure drawing opportunities a priority, whether an open workshop or formal classes.  An established organization may be in better position to provide a working space, to provide a salary for the models, to bring everyone together, and to provide instruction where appropriate.  

There have been a number of arts organizations in the region that have offered life drawing in a workshop situation.  (local colleges offer it as an official class, but that can be a lot of money if you just want some practice)  The Belmar Arts Council started up a group several years ago, and I eventually became a regular.  Besides the always useful practice, meeting models gave me a source I could use for some print projects of my own.  But the guy running it had to give it up, and for a long time no one else had the ability or interest in doing so.  Earlier this year someone finally decided to do so, but I've had plenty of other things to keep me busy.  And I don't have any projects in the works that require a model.  However, as of now I am tentatively scheduled to be teaching figure drawing at one of my colleges in the fall, which I haven't done in several years, and I think it wouldn't hurt to get a little more practice before I do so.  Their page on the Belmar website said that it would be one pose for two hours, which doesn't work for me, but when I spoke to the new group leader a few weeks ago, she said its the usual mix of short and medium length poses.

With that in mind, I reserved a spot with the new Belmar group for tonight's drawing session.  When it first started up again it could be quite crowded, but the numbers have dropped lately, so my reservation was more about making sure they had enough people to run it.  It opened with some short poses, 5 to 10 minute drawings, for which a small sketchbook and pencil would be fine.  My last pencil drawing was the above 20 minute drawing.  Later I set up my easel and got out the drawing board, big pad, and charcoal, and did my first charcoal figure drawings in about 3 years.  The 30 minute drawing below was the more complete of these.

I definitely felt rusty, especially with the charcoal.  I teach a little charcoal almost every semester, but there's a big difference between still life and the figure, and between telling students what to do and doing it yourself.  But considering that I haven't done this in years, I didn't do too badly.  And the other artists present tonight (all younger than me) were suitably impressed by such things as my willingness to draw hands and daring to use soft dark charcoal.  Will I be back next time?  We'll see.