the scriptorium

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Yesterday, I drew my first nude male model in figure drawing class. We had been using Ashley, a very nice young lady, as our model over the last week or so. I found that I was not at all intimidated by drawing Ashley; she was very matter-of-fact, almost clinical, about the whole thing, and that put me at ease. Drawing Danny was somewhat different, as you might imagine. I think part of it was that he seemed less at ease than Ashley had; in fact, I overheard him and the teacher talking before he disrobed and caught a snippet of the conversation where the teacher said to him, "Yes, completely naked." I'm sure that Danny was just making sure of his instructions; after all, one wouldn't want to come into a room, drop your robe, and then find out that you were supposed to leave something on. But it kinda threw me, as if, if he wasn't comfortable with this, how was I gonna be? I got over that fairly quickly though, and was able to complete the drawings. I did admit to one of my other female classmates during break, though, that I felt like I had to strike a balance in my drawing. You know, you don't want to ignore certain areas altogether, and be called a prude, but you also don't want to go into too much detail in those areas and be called a pervert. Not that I was at all attracted to the model--he seemed a little, well, gay, for lack of a better word, and was far too skinny for my taste. He did have a lovely autumn leaf tattoo on his back at the right shoulder, though, and I told him it was very nice. Ashley had far more tattoos than he had, with a complete set of angel wings on her back and several butterflies in various places. Overall, this class is challenging me, confronting my hangups and prejudices, and actually encouraging me that I can draw a person and not have them end up looking like a Disney character.

Well, I see that it's time to start thinking about going to work, so I'll sign off for now. It may be another late night tonight--my ceramics teacher told me just before leaving campus yesterday that it would be a good idea to come into the studio outside of class to get a jump on the next project we're starting, the coil pot.

posted by #Debi at 6:36 AM | permalink | 0 comments